1m spread
Cordyline is a bold and handsome evergreen shrub that slowly develops a tree-like form. It has a dramatic and exotic appearance with an attractive architectural shape, forming either a single trunk or multiple stems topped with dense tufts of long, narrow, leathery leaves. Cordyline is sometimes known as cabbage palm, New Zealand cabbage tree or Torbay palm, although it isn’t actually a palm tree or anything to do with a cabbage.
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The most widely grown species is
Cordyline australis which is native to New Zealand. It has plain green leaves, although there’s a range of cultivars with variegated, coloured or multi-coloured foliage. Green-leaved forms are largest and fastest-growing and can reach around 5 metres high. Coloured and variegated varieties are less vigorous and rarely grow larger than 2.5-3 m high, and less when grown in containers.
Oh My Sweets! is among the offerings from enterprising former West End workers
Credit: Oh My Sweets!
“Necessity is the mother of invention” is a proverb that has been tested and proven to the hilt this year. Theatre-makers – and those in associated industries – have seen the sudden and lengthy closure of the playhouses blast their livelihoods to smithereens. And notwithstanding some – far from comprehensive – Government support, masses of freelancers have been forced to do what they can to keep body and soul together.
Such is the burgeoning nature of the new activity, which has seen this creative sector turn on additional taps of money-raising ingenuity as never before, that sites and social media accounts have sprung up helping to guide potential customers through the maze of home-grown delights. If you want to help the freelance theatre community and stumble on unusual Christmas gift ideas, theatre-themed or not, you could do worse than start at NotOnTheWestEnd.co.uk