Botanical advice?

The Duchess has recently returned from a visit to her great aunt Morticia, of New York State. She has brought back with her a certain fascination with an exotic plant, specifically an African Strangler.





Now we have a conservatory perfect for such a plant, but we can't find one in any of our local garden centres. Does anyone know where we can purchase one?





Also, is there anything unique to this plant species we should know about before buying a specimen?

Botanical advice?
my African strangler plant whose main diet consists of chunks of red, fleshy meat, favorite food is Zebra Burgers and Yak meatballs. I actually grew it from a seed. The overly aggressive plant is always snuggling up to my family's visitors who donn't realize that the plant's apparent affection was really the plants way of sizing up her next meal.
Reply:hmmmmm I think once again you've solved one of my problems in your questions old bean............


For months now, we've been losing young oiks in the lower greenhouse, as they put more coal in the hot-house boiler.


At the same time, one of our plants has been getting rather larger, and occasionally at night, we've been hearing "feed me, feed me......." from the same location. could they be related? We've thought the plant was just a weed, but you're welcome to check and remove it if you care to
Reply:I know of a Little Boffington strangler, namely my man Tristan, he is a bit of a specimen as well, 6'8", one eye, one ear and half a nose.
Reply:Yes. You can purchase one in New York State.





You're welcome.
Reply:be very surprised if Robert Mugabe could get a visa
Reply:Have been thumbing through my hort. refs in search of such a plant, and I think I see the problem. The plant you probably refer to is tradescantia etranger, also known as the "African Stranger" plant, not "Strangler." There are many varieties, but unless your conservatory is the size of the Crystal Palace I suggest your needs would be more than met by the hybrid "Nana," or small. Even so, you will not be able to grow anything other than this one plant, whose bracts often reach 140 feet or more.





The main difficulty will be in obtaining one, as the chief characteristic of this plant (and the reason for its name) is that it must be given to you by someone who does not know you and whom you will never see again. Because the foliage is so lush and gorgeous and the flowers are so reminiscent of the heads of beautiful children, several techniques have been devised with an eye toward prompting strangers to donate plants.





The more obvious method would be to place an ad, as in "Whoever you are, would you kindly deposit one African Stranger plant (tradescantia etranger var. nana) into the bowler hat by the south portico at noon on Sunday?" This has been known to work, although of course there is a better chance of one's bowler being found full of God knows what at 1:30 p.m.





The other reasonably reliable method for obtaining this plant is to send your servants on a voyage to Camaroon dressed as Arabic slavers. The common belief in Camaroon is that an Arabic slaver can be made to go home and forget about his mission if one inserts a sliver of Stranger Plant into his nether regions while he sleeps. This will of course be unpleasant for all of the servants other than Dirty Ted, but what are servants for if not to do what their master cannot or will not (or did only once on holiday but didn't like it very much)?





Upon arriving back to England, the sprig of Stranger Plant must be grown on in a vat of Marmite until it reaches shoulder high, at which point it can be transferred to its final growing place. Please pay no attention at all to the rumor that the mature plant must be watered with the tears of virgins. If this were the case the plant could never have been grown in Scotland.