Other Names:  Purple Shrimp, Blue Shrimp, Rose Pine Cones

Description:

An attractive tropical plant with very ornamental leaves of deep green, with bright silver veins; terminal spikes of purple flowers, surrounded by bright red bracts are stunning and bloom year round; excellent in borders, beds or containers

Ornamental Features

Maracas Brazilian Fireworks features showy spikes of purple tubular flowers with scarlet bracts rising above the foliage from early spring to late winter. Its attractive pointy leaves remain dark green in color with distinctive silver veins throughout the year.

Landscape Attributes

Maracas Brazilian Fireworks is an herbaceous evergreen tropical plant with a mounded form. Its medium texture blends into the garden, but can always be balanced by a couple of finer or coarser plants for an effective composition.

This is a relatively low maintenance plant, and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season's flowers. It is a good choice for attracting hummingbirds to your yard. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Maracas Brazilian Fireworks is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• General Garden Use
• Container Planting
• Hanging Baskets

Planting & Growing

This plant is native to the tropics and prefers growing in moist environments with evenly warm conditions all year round. In our climate, it is usually grown as an outdoor annual in the garden or in a container. If you want it to survive the winter, it can be brought in to the house and provided with special care, and then returned to the garden the following season. In its preferred tropical habitat, it can grow to be around 8 inches tall at maturity extending to 12 inches tall with the flowers, with a spread of 14 inches. However, when grown as an annual or when overwintered indoors, it can be expected to perform differently, and its exact height and spread will depend on many factors; you may wish to consult with our experts as to how it might perform in your specific application and growing conditions.

This plant does best in partial shade to shade. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This is a selected variety of a species not originally from North America.

Maracas Brazilian Fireworks is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor containers and hanging baskets. It is often used as a 'filler' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, providing a mass of flowers and foliage against which the thriller plants stand out. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.

-- THIS IS A TROPICAL PLANT AND SHOULD NOT BE EXPECTED TO SURVIVE THE WINTER OUTDOORS IN OUR CLIMATE --