Fountain Plant

The Fountain  Plant or Russelia equsetiformis is the one!   It is also commonly called the Firecracker plant also. Its brilliant red flowers appear on 12-inch long sprays throughout the warm season.  The blooms are 3/4 “to 1” in length and are narrowly tubular, making them ideally suited for the long, slender bills of hummingbirds.

Other common names for this plant are coral fountain, firecracker plant, rain of fire, and coral blow.  With its cascading fronds and red blooms planted in a tall slender red pot, it will be a great focus plant!  I love containers as you can vary the forms and colors you select and they can be moved to show them off when in full bloom, then retired to less prominent

Flowers of Fountain Plant

locations when not at their peak of glory.

The Fountain Plant can reach 3 to 6 feet high and 4 feet wide.  If that is a bit large for you, just limit the width of the container but keep good height to the container as the branches take root easily and may  have a tendency to be invasive.  Or, to simplify, just plant it in a hanging pot!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Gardening, Hummingbirds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.