Ixora coccinea
Ixora
Three colours of the standard Pakistani flowering hedge shrub.
Ixora is the workhorse flowering shrub of Pakistani landscaping — dense heads of flower for most of the warm year, glossy evergreen leaves, compact habit, and an appetite for full sun that suits our summers. It is planted in every commercial scheme in the country and it deserves a place in gardens too.
We grow it in three colours. They are otherwise identical in habit and care, so the choice is purely visual.
One shared problem worth knowing: ixora is an acid-loving plant living in alkaline soil and alkaline water. Yellow leaves with green veins are iron lock-out, not hunger, and an iron chelate drench twice a season fixes it.
Choosing between them
They are not interchangeable
By colour
Red is the classic and the most vigorous. Orange is the loudest and best massed. Yellow is the softest and the least commonly seen.
As a hedge
Plant at half-metre centres and clip after each flowering flush. It knits into a solid low hedge within two seasons and takes a hard late-winter cut without sulking.
In a pot
All three are happy in a 12 or 18 inch gamla on a sunny terrace. Feed through the warm months — a pot-grown ixora that stops flowering is almost always hungry.
All 3 side by side
Every one is a separate plant on our own bench, with its own photographs.
| Variety | Botanical name | Mature size | Light | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dwarf Ixora | Ixora coccinea ‘Nana’ | 60–90 cm | Full sun | Rs 750 |
| Yellow Ixora | Ixora coccinea ‘Yellow’ | 0.8–1.5 m | Full sun | Rs 350 |
| Orange Ixora | Ixora coccinea ‘Orange’ | 0.8–1.5 m | Full sun | Rs 350 |
