As usual, apologies for ignoring this blog for the best part of a year, 'Events, dear boy' as a former prime minister said. In my 24 years in the industry, it has never been as consistently busy as the period since my last post!
Anyway, grovelling aside, I once mentioned a plant that I liked at the start of my career that then vanished without trace, the Maranta Massangeana.
The fact that if you search for images of this name in quotation marks, you get almost zero accurate results should tell you how rare it is.
The 'normal' Maranta, M. Tricoleur, looks like the plant on left below. It's constantly available, and we use it a lot:
Now, I'm the first to admit that - with its red stripes, and generally jaunty attitude to being grown, it's the pick of the bunch, but the mere rarity and - I'd argue - delicate appearance of the Massangeana has made it my holy grail/unicorn plants for two decades.
Now, every Monday, my trusty Dutch plant supplier sends me an enormous price list of every plant I can currently buy, in either compost of hydroponic, and in what size. This Monday it was 1,838 lines long. Mind you, there's a list of pots and sundries too, and that's 9,858!
While searching for something else, I spotted 'Maranta Exclusive Dark' and 'Exclusive Grey'. Trembling, I clicked on the names, which brings up an image.
Exclusive Dark (click link for image) is effectively a Massangeana, but on frenziedly ringing Holland was told was not in stock. Exclusive Grey on the right was, and I ordered a box, despite them being three times the price of a normal one. It's arrived, and I'm in love. One is coming home with me!
I then noticed another type called Maranta Lemon...
I'm rather taken by them too, so I'll be ordering another box of those next week. And one will come home with me too!
Why am I waffling on like this? Well, if you are our South Coast catchment area, and Google has brought you here in search of these elusive species,
contact me, and I will happily recoup the cost of my own plant nerdery by selling you one!