Martin Fish rings the changes with abutilon
They’re a greenhouse favourite and make good cuttings, too
Abutilons, or ‘flowering maple’ as they’re sometimes called, make good specimen plants for a greenhouse and during the summer they can be used in containers outside. Many years ago, when I worked for a parks department, we grew abutilon and used them as ‘dot’ plants in bedding plant displays, where they looked exotic and added height to the planting.
There are lots of different types of abutilon and some, such as A. vitifolium, can withstand several degrees of frost and are suitable for growing outside in mild parts of the country. The types I want to grow again are the tender ones, such as A. pictum, that need frost protection in the winter. As their name suggests, they’ve a maple-shaped leaf and produce a shrubby plant that can be grown as single or multi-stemmed. Some also have variegated foliage, such as ‘Thompsonii’, which has yellow mottled leaves, while ‘Souvenir de Bonn’ has attractive, cream-edged leaves. The plants also produce yellow to orange, bell-shaped flowers in the leaf joints from late spring until autumn.
When growing in a greenhouse, the plants can become large, but they respond well to pruning in spring and through summer the tips can be pinched out to keep them bushy. The shoots that are
trimmed off make good cuttings and they root well anytime between now and late
summer. Trim the shoots to around 7.5cm ( 3in) just below a leaf joint and carefully remove the lower leaves to create a clear stem. Any flower buds should also be pinched off. Insert the cuttings around the edge of a pot filled with compost and lightly firm. For
rooting, I mix three parts multi-purpose compost to one part Perlite, which gives an open mix. In a propagator, the cuttings should root in around a month and they can then be potted individually to grow on.