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Showing posts with label orange lanterns flowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orange lanterns flowers. Show all posts

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Chinese Lanterns



Popular for the papery bright-orange lantern pods that develop around the ripening fruit, these are often cut and used for Thanksgiving and Halloween arrangements. Plants are aggressive spreaders, and best kept out of the perennial border so they don't take over. Also can be grown in tubs. Small white flowers appear in midsummer, over a bushy mound of coarse green leaves. Pods are green at first, but should be harvested as soon as the orange colour develops, the leaves stripped then stems hung upside down to dry in a warm dark room.