PURPLE SHOWERS OR MEXICAN BLUEBELLS (RUELLIA BRITTONIANA)

Purple Showers or Mexican Bluebells plant is another member of Mexican Petunia. Its scientific name is Ruellia Brittoniana, same as the Dwarf Mexican Petunia. Purple Showers is a native to Mexico and is a desert plant.

This plant is an evergreen shrub and it loves the sun.

It is very easy to grow and is very fast growing. It is hardy and can survive very dry condition.

Purple Showers is very easy to maintain. You only need to trim it down when it grows too tall or gets out of shape with some of its branches bowing over to the sides.

Once you plant a Purple Showers plant in your garden, it will be a faithful bloomer in your garden.

This plant is easily available, sometimes you can even see them by the roadside. If you need to buy them from the nursery, it is very cheap.

It can grow to a height of 1.2 to 1.5 meters (4 to 5 feet). It has dark green slender leaves and bright, showy flowers.

The flowers have long stalks supporting single flowers with single layered petals. The flowers is 

purple to dark blue and blooms throughout the year.

I have seen the ones with pink flowers but I have yet to get hold of one for my garden.

The shrub is suitable for backdrops especially to covered unpleasant wall surface. It can be potted or as a hedge, as beds, borders or as landscape plants.

It does not need much fertilizer and hardly has any pest problem. The flowers last for a day but is forever blooming.

I used stem cuttings to grow my Purple Showers. Just make sure that one of the nodes on the stalk is buried in moist soil for the roots to grow.

For those of you who claim or feel that you have no green thumbs or fingers, this plant will not fail nor let you down. It is one of the easiest plant to grow.

Unfortunately, in some nation, it is considered a pest plant for its fast growth. From my own experience, the ones I have are grown through stem cuttings and till now I have not seen self-sowing and so they will not grow out of control.

Honor the LORD with your wealth,

with the first fruits of all your crops;

then your barns will be filled to overflowing,

and your vats will brim over with new wine.

(Proverbs 3:9-10, New International Version-NIV)