I thought I was pushing my luck growing this Australasian
perennial outside, but several years on, it is still performing brilliantly. It is a really useful plant, being
evergreen and drought and shade-tolerant, and I am using it as a replacement for the former stalwart evergreen
iris, I foetidissima, which has been dying out through rust attack. But it should not be viewed as thoroughly hardy,
and it also requires acid soil.
The sky blue flowers are attractive but tiny and easily missed; the real star turn comes in early autumn when the
berries expand into an extraordinary violet-purple which has even the postman transfixed. Z10