{"title":"Shrimp Plants (Justicia)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe shrimp plant earns the name honestly. What looks like a flower is a drooping chain of overlapping bracts, coppery bronze or soft pink, curved and segmented exactly like the shell of a shrimp, with the real flower a small white tongue slipping out from between them. The display goes on for months, and hummingbirds work the bracts steadily.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eJusticia brandegeana\u003c\/em\u003e comes out of Mexico and is grown across the Gulf South as a perennial that dies to the ground in a hard winter and returns, and further north as a container plant that carries on flowering indoors. Give the plants part shade, ordinary soil, and a pinch in spring for a fuller frame. In a border they are the reliable long-season filler; in a pot beside a door they are a small ongoing entertainment.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"justicia-brandegeana-pink","title":"Justicia brandegeana 'Pink'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe shrimp plant earns the name honestly. The arching flower spikes are built of overlapping bronze-to-pink bracts, each one curved and shingled over the next, so that the whole drooping cluster reads unmistakably as the tail of a boiled shrimp. This is the soft pink form, gentler in color than the coppery-salmon type most people picture, and out of the bracts slip the true flowers: slender, white, two-lipped tubes freckled with maroon at the throat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJusticia sits in Acanthaceae and honors James Justice, the eighteenth-century Scot sometimes called the father of Scottish gardening, while the epithet remembers the American botanist Townshend Brandegee. Older books file the plant under Beloperone guttata, and you will still meet that name in nurseries and greenhouses; botanists have since folded Beloperone into the much larger genus Justicia. Gardeners also know the shrimp plant as false hop, since the drooping bracted spikes carry a passing resemblance to the strobiles of the brewer's vine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNative to Mexico and reaching into Central America, this is a soft-stemmed tropical shrub that flowers with almost comic persistence, nearly year round where frost never comes and through the warm months everywhere else. In USDA zones 9 through 11 the plant stays evergreen and shrubby; in zone 8 the top freezes away and the roots push up fresh growth in spring. North of that, gardeners grow the shrimp plant in a pot, summering the pot outdoors and bringing the plant under cover before the cold. A light pinch now and then keeps a plant from growing lanky and shy of bloom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHummingbirds find the white tubes quickly, and butterflies work the spikes alongside them, which makes the shrimp plant a small engine of movement in a container or a warm border. There is a quieter history here too: the Huastec Maya of northeastern Mexico kept the plant in their medicine, using the leaves for dysentery and other complaints of the gut and to dress wounds. For most of us the reward is simpler and entirely visible, a tireless, shrimp-pink performance that asks for little more than a bright spot and the occasional trim.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42057904226419,"sku":"JUST-BRAN-PINK-01G","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/2FDB5FAD-D0B7-4AC0-81DA-AF79F59CCA79.jpg?v=1727115139"},{"product_id":"justicia-brandegeana","title":"Justicia brandegeana","description":"\u003cp\u003eJusticia brandegeana, the shrimp plant, is a subtropical evergreen shrub from Mexico, grown the world over for the curious, shrimp-like flower spikes that give the plant its name: arching, overlapping bracts in warm coppery orange, salmon, and rust, from which small white flowers peek like a shrimp's legs. The bracts hold their color for weeks, so a well-grown plant seems always in bloom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlooming is the point, and the shrimp plant blooms without pause. From spring through fall, and year-round where frost never comes, the arching stems carry a steady procession of the coppery spikes, all the more striking for their unusual shape and warm color. Hummingbirds and butterflies work the flowers eagerly, making the plant a fixture of warm-climate pollinator gardens.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNative to frost-free Mexico, the shrimp plant is grown as an evergreen shrub in the mild South and as a container plant or annual farther north, easily overwintered indoors or under cover. In marginal zones the plant dies back in cold and resprouts from the roots with mulch and shelter. Give full sun to partial shade and well-drained soil, and pinch the stems to keep the plant bushy and full of bloom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUse the shrimp plant in a warm border, a tropical-style bed, a mixed container, or a pot on a sunny terrace, where the coppery spikes and hummingbird traffic can be enjoyed up close. The plant pairs well with other heat-lovers and tropical foliage, and blooms hardest with a little room and steady warmth. Cut back leggy growth to renew the display.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Woodlanders","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42328261820531,"sku":"JUST-BRAN-01G","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0605\/7505\/5987\/files\/EABC87C3-FC84-469D-8A67-8D6045ED99F8.jpg?v=1727114409"}],"url":"https:\/\/woodlanders.net\/collections\/justicia.oembed","provider":"Woodlanders","version":"1.0","type":"link"}