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Christmas bells, a tufted perennial from eastern Australia with drooping red-and-yellow bell flowers. It grows well in pots in light, well-drained sandy soil and needs bright light without harsh direct sun or deep shade.
Blandfordia grandiflora, commonly known as Christmas bells, is a flowering plant endemic to eastern Australia. It is a tufted perennial herb with narrow, channelled, linear leaves and between two and twenty large, drooping, bell-shaped flowers. The flowers are red with yellow tips, or sometimes entirely yellow. It is one of four species of Blandfordia known as Christmas bells, this one growing on the coast and nearby ranges between Sydney in New South Wales and Fraser Island in Queensland.
Although Blandfordia grandiflora is endemic to Australia, in the nineteenth century many botanists grew it in Great Britain because it can easily be grown as a potted plant. B. grandiflora grows well in sandy soils. The wet coastal heaths of Australia, such as those found in New South Wales and Queensland, have the sandy soil necessary for it to grow. The soil should be light and well-drained, and the plant should not be in direct sunlight or in heavy shade. Although it is the most robust of the four species, B. grandiflora is very slow growing, so more aggressive plants easily swamp it in the wild.
This species of Christmas bells grows in damp soils on the coast and tablelands between the Hawkesbury River in New South Wales, Fraser Island in Queensland and inland as far as Glen Innes.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Blandfordia grandiflora by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
