Pronounciation: Lie-see-AN-this ran-ton-NET-ee-eye

Hardiness zones:
Sunset 8-9, 12-24
USDA 8 (deciduous)-11

Landscape Use: Floral accent, garden borders, habitat and pollinator gardens, oasis or mesic design motifs, patio containers.

Form & Character: Upright, rounded yet informal, colorful, tropical, free-spirited to sprawling, tender and sensitive, yet tough.

Growth Habit: Evergreen (in Phoenix), semi-woody, perennial shrub, moderate growth rate to 8-feet tall with near equal spread, angular stems.

Foliage/Texture: Leaves entire, oval to elliptical, medium green with pinnate veination, 1-inch long, sometimes variegated; medium texture.

Flowers & Fruits: Grows a profusion of 1-inch wide, trumpet-shaped, bright blue to purple flowers with a prominent yellow eye, petals fused, slightly aromatic, attract butterflies, flowers rarely white; fruits are orange-red, oval to rounded small berries, poisonious.

Seasonal Color: Flowers almost year around in Phoenix, most heavily in spring and fall.

Temperature: Cold tolerant, but struggles when air temperatures exceed 110^oF. Heat stress injury occurs above 115^oF, especially if located in full sun.

Light: Full sun to filtered light shade or some shade from western summer sun, no full shade.

Soil: Tolerant of most soil textures, as long as well drained and not highly alkaline.

Watering: Though drought tolerant in coastal southern California, blue potato bush will need regular supplemental water throughout the year in Phoenix.

Pruning: Easily pruned to almost any extent except formally sheared. So sorry 'Horticultural clods of Phoenix' (aka 'Hort clods') but blue potato bush will resist your attempts to abuse it into plant geometric conformity.

Propagation: Extremely easy by semi-hardened stem cuttings with use of mild rooting hormone (1,000 to 3,000 ppm IBA). Avoid propagating by seed due to poisonious berries.

Disease and Pests: None

Additional comments: Blue potato bush is a colorful, 'old fashioned' garden shrub that is less commonly prescribed in Phoenix as a landscape element in this present day of 'sustainable desert landscaping'. Common cultivated selections include 'Variegata' (cream and grey-green foliage) and 'White' (you guessed it, white flowers, though not spectacular).

Taxonomic tidbit: The species name rantonnetii is named after Barthélémy Victor Rantonnet, a 19th-century French horticulturalist.