Ixora

I remember seeing a lot of the common red Ixora shrubs as a child, and then again nowadays, but there seemed to be a time in between where people didn’t use them so much.

A red ball made up of tiny red flowers is quite striking in any location. But Ixora is not only red, there’s also a salmon coloured one, pale yellow and pink. The bright red is the one that is seen most frequently - it’s the easiest to grow, but generally speaking, Ixora takes a bit more care, especially to get a young plant going. It’s not something that I personally have had much success with, though my aunt gets them to flourish in the blink of an eye - she has a very green thumb, and they are attacked by blight.

Each brightly coloured ball is made up of many many tiny flowers, and a cut ball looks lovely in a small bowl of water and will stay fresh for a few days.

Ixora is found throughout the Caribbean, not just in Barbados, and is sometimes known as West Indian Jasmine. The flowers have no special fragrance, the leaves are a regular “leaf” shape, and the red flowers are an important component of Hindu worship.