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(P) on plant labels
Emma128
Posts: 7
Hi,
This may seem like an obvious question but google wasn't very helpful!
I have bought a plant and it had this label in:
It had a (P) in brackets which I thought meant perennial?
I've googled this plant and some websites say its an annual?
What does the (P) mean and is there any tricks to tell if you are buying something that will keep coming back?
Thanks everyone!
0
Posts
It is a perennial in hot countries. However the frost will usually kill it here. Take cuttings in Autumn to overwinter in a frost free place.
Don't know what the (p) means but my Osteospurnum is perennial, or at least it's still there, and has grown since last year
The common Osteospermum, which is a pale lilac/pink colour is a hardy perrenial, and grows like a weed in our garden, I love it, it spreads and acts as a very good weed suppressant and when it gets too leggy I give it a good haircut with the garden shears and it starts all over again. You can pull bits off it and stick it in the soil and it roots easily, but the more colourful and bright coloured plants sold in garden centres and nurseries are not so hardy and will be killed off by the frost. However, if you take cuttings and keep them in a frost free place over winter you will be able to plant them again next year.
Panda, a lot of frost tender perennials survived last winter. My argyranthemums are now huge and in full flower. Here they normally are dead by November. In Perth, western Australia, with no frost, all the coloured argyranthemums grow like shrubs ,up to four feet across and as high. Gazanias are lawn weeds.
Hi Fidget, I bought some argyranthemums last month, as my greenhouse is arriving soon and so I'll have somewhere to overwinter them. how do I overwinter? whats the minimum warmth and how much water?
ta
Oh poo Fidget
And they look so good I really hoped they'd last! Guess I'll have to try the cuttings thing 
Snoodle, you can either dig a whole plant up, overwinter it frost free,cut it down in spring and it will regrow. You can do cuttings then.
Or you can take cuttings of strong unflowered shoots about 7cm or 3incheslong, in August or September, and root them and just overwinter the cuttings. Or for belt and braces you could do both.
This year the outside one's were doing better than the dug up one, so I took cuttings off the outside one's in March. They are now in flower. Just luck, not what I would usually recommend.
That's one of the 'Serenity' series of osteos - the least hardy. They're generally grown as bedding for the summer only.
This one kept going outdoors over the winter
MIne is the same colour as yours Steve, but slightly larger
I love the bright vibrant colour of the petals. Thanks for the tip Fidget re cuttings. My life is too short to dig the plant up