No, 2008 is not a typo! Phal Pink Panther ( a trade name) is a plant that I rescued in June 2008 from a garden center where I worked. It re-spiked that summer, and started blooming in early december 2008.
Since then it has been nearly constantly in bloom. Every year it spends 2 months or so bloomless, but that's only because the spikes were busy working on new buds. Then the blooms last 6-8 months. And the best thing is that it continues to throw up spikes. Right now it has 6 spikes, but it's not all that spectacular since each only has 3-4 blooms open at a time and the spikes are sticking out in various directions. Then the 2 older spikes have decided that extending the tip isn't enough, they're also growing side spikes.
I've given up long ago on cutting down spikes for it to conserve energy, that only encourages it to put out 1-2 new spikes. I'll let it be since the plant doesn't seem too much affected. It grows large healthy leaves and roots, and the blooms aren't getting any smaller. It will have to stop blooming at one point, it's going to run out of leaf axils from which to grow spikes!
This is an older pic, since the plant is unmovable it stayed in France and the pic my sister sent today is too fuzzy to post. Pink Panther is a trade name, I've tried to hunt down the RHS registered name of the cross several times but with no luck.
Phal hybrid in bloom since......December 2008!
Threaded Mode
