@Lizzie27,..hi Lizzie,..comparing the images you are correct,..mine is in part shade for the best part of the day but in full sun around noon,..the bloom is described as having 'Brick Red Dots',..i have a feeling the part shade could be the difference,..your blooms are far denser than mine and look better.
I have freckle envy - the flowers are beautiful - did you have to wait long for your plants to flower? I grew mine from a plug plant - so it is now 2 - 3 years old, twisting up a plum tree approx 2 metres tall - very spindly.
@Guernsey Donkey2,..oh yours may give you a massive display yet as the bloom time is supposed to be Dec to Feb,..somehow that seems wrong when one looks at how @Lizzie27 and mine are in bloom at present,..however the weather has certainly changed so much that the guidelines seem outdated.
I have my plant for years and i can not remember when i got it,..like yours its approx 3 metres tall and as wide,..rather bare from the ground to 1 metre,..impossible to try prune it near the top so i just let it be.
My plant is also in shade for part of the day, underneath a very big birch tree (which it keeps trying to escape on) and facing east. It's at least 7 years old now but can't remember how long it took to flower. It has flowered on Xmas Day which was lovely - especially to the big fat bee that found it! The difference in flower colour may be down to the soil perhaps, ours is clay on limestone. I must confess I've only got that one big clump now , the other flowers are more spread out. I'm thinking it won't flower again in late winter but will have to wait and see. It's well worth growing though, as it's an evergreen one so a good cover on a trellis.
Mine flower on-and-off all year round but with more flowers between now and about March. I think there's likely more than one cultivar being sold as 'freckles' as the flowers on mine stay bell-shaped and never open out as much as some of the images above and they are in widely differing positions from completely shaded in unimproved clay to full sun in a very light sandy loam (large planter) in which they became invasive.
A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
@Guernsey Donkey2. Don't worry yours is a relatively young plant if you grew it from a plug. Give it a bit more time it will. The variations in colour are partially down to cultural conditions. But Lansdowne Gem (dark maroony red ) is a sport of Freckles in which the Freckles all joined up. So the dark colour I think is possibly a cultivar (urgh forgot the word), like habit. Also a possibility is someone being naughty and selling seed raised ones? Don't know. But there is a variation sometimes on some of ours. Also Lansdowne Gem can partially revert, which is annoying. I spent ages trying to trace stems of mine to see if it was more than one plant. Then finally found that little snippet of info. So sorry, long winded explanation of why Freckles is possibly so variable.
Lovely pictures of all of them, light or not they are lovely things. I like they way the sway in the wind on their long stems
Thanks for all your encouragement regarding no freckle flowers on my plant. However from what you have said there is still time for it to flower this season. It got fed and watered today so fingers crossed.
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Philip.
I have my plant for years and i can not remember when i got it,..like yours its approx 3 metres tall and as wide,..rather bare from the ground to 1 metre,..impossible to try prune it near the top so i just let it be.
I must confess I've only got that one big clump now , the other flowers are more spread out.
I'm thinking it won't flower again in late winter but will have to wait and see. It's well worth growing though, as it's an evergreen one so a good cover on a trellis.
The variations in colour are partially down to cultural conditions.
But Lansdowne Gem (dark maroony red ) is a sport of Freckles in which the Freckles all joined up. So the dark colour I think is possibly a cultivar (urgh forgot the word), like habit.
Also a possibility is someone being naughty and selling seed raised ones?
Don't know. But there is a variation sometimes on some of ours.
Also Lansdowne Gem can partially revert, which is annoying.
I spent ages trying to trace stems of mine to see if it was more than one plant. Then finally found that little snippet of info.
So sorry, long winded explanation of why Freckles is possibly so variable.
Lovely pictures of all of them, light or not they are lovely things. I like they way the sway in the wind on their long stems