Well, it's all in the eye of the beholder, as we know. And in decades of having diff Dracs around, only 1 has bloomed once. If I wasn't such a hoverer about inspecting plants often, I would have missed this short-lived event of what most would call an "inconspicuous" flower. On a larger specimen, a multitude of blooms would be noticeable, but one little clump of 4 flowers on one little patch of D. surculosa hiding under a much taller Ti plant, it was a real snooze as far as a flower show goes. (Supposed to be fragrant, but probably just not enough there to make a scent.) So AV's have a severe advantage in that way.
The water (Sheryl's) does sound like stuff Dracs wouldn't like. Until I got into investigating plant water, it never occurred to me that ground water has a LOT of stuff in it, no matter where it comes from, that is not in rain water. Once it hits the ground, it picks up minerals & salts, like you mentioned. Catching rain water is the only way to give plants pure water that they would get in nature - from rain. Not all plants are bothered by tap or ground water, but the only way to find out is to start watering. In a desert, catching rain water is probably an occasional novelty, not a plan on which one could rely without a more sophisticated holding system than what I have (buckets under the eave of the carport, which I dump occasionally if mosquitoes are going to mature before I can use it all.) In a place where catching rain would be so much more difficult, it's understandable that certain plants would not be able to do well.
Aside from being sensitive to stuff in water, Dracs are really tough plants.
Holly, your plant is blooming - or was 6 weeks ago! Does it have a fragrance?
