Leucadendron Jack Harre - Conebush

Leucadendron 'Jack Harre' is an evergreen and bushy shrub suited to mild climates, rare in cultivation. It is a cousin of Proteas, with which it shares a preference for full sun and dry soils in summer. This selection stands out for beautiful spring flowering which covers its ovate foliage, marked in purple, with pretty pink and red inflorescences that are circled with waxy bracts, like ruffs. It is a plant with very exotic charm, adapted to a Mediterranean climate or for cultivation in large pots under more humid and cooler skies. Its cultivation is sometimes delicate in soil that is too rich, and it prefers a non-alkaline soil.

Leucadendron 'Jack Harre' is a hybrid from Leucadendron salignum, a bush native to the Cape Province in South Africa where Leucadendrons are an essential part of the fynbos ecoregion, a narrow coastal and mountainous zone characterised by a Mediterranean climate. This woody and branching plant is part of the Proteaceae family. The 'Jack Harre' cultivar forms a bush 1m (3 ft) high and wide under favourable conditions. The leaves, single and tough, ovate to elliptical in shape, are light green, clearly spotted with dark red. In May-June the bush produces elliptical floral buds of a red tint at the end of its branches. These bloom into compound inflorescences forming a heart of tiny brownish flowers surrounded by a ruff of pointed, thick and tough bracts, pink, irregularly bordered with red. Leucadendrons are dioecious, meaning that male and female flowers are borne on distinct plants. The female inflorescences are less showy and emit a powerful yeasty smell. The flowers are very popular in floristry because of their excellent vase life.

Leucadendron 'Jack Harre' is a very exotic-looking plant that won't leave you indifferent. Preferably planted in a coastal garden spared from severe frosts, in light soil with an acidic tendency and poor in nitrates and phosphorus. Particularly adapted to the Mediterranean climate, it is content with ungrateful, dry to arid soils, and will look good on its own, on large slopes or in the back of dry garden beds, but always in an open situation, in full sun. In an exotic-themed garden it can be combined with cordylines, proteas, Canary Viperine, Euphorbia characias, Euphorbia mellifera, Great Ferula, Melianthus major, palm trees or Leptospermum. This bush also grows very well in a tub or a large pot, to decorate the terrace or balcony of an experienced gardener.