Grows best in full to part sun with occasional deep watering and is cold hardy to about 20-25° F with foliage often turning a dark near-black with temperatures approaching freezing. In part shade it is moderately drought tolerant in coastal gardens. In mild climates this plant can be in flower nearly year-round with flowers and fruit appearing at the same time. It is a good choice for espaliers, as a small tree or large shrub; all forms benefit from frequent selective pruning. Flowers are very attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds. The attractive fruits and the foliage have saponins that are poisonous to humans but are considered to be bitter and, while poisonings in the US were unreported in 1986 when Thomas C. Fuller and Elizabeth McClintock's Poisonous Plants of California (University of California Press, 1986) was published, there were reports of children becoming ill from eating berries in Australia.

Duranta erecta, long grown as Duranta repens is native to the New World from Florida, Mexico, the Caribbean south to Brazil and has many common names, including golden dewdrop, pigeon-berry and sky-flower. The name for the genus honors Castore Durante (AKA Castor Durante da Gualdo) a 16th century Italian botanist and physician who wrote a book in 1585 describing medicinal plants from Europe and East and West Indies. The specific epithet is descriptive of the upright habit of the plant. This species was first introduced to California by Joseph Sexton at his Goleta Valley Nursery in 1879 and reported by Dr. Francesco Franceschi (AKA Emanuele Orazio Fenzi) as not being rare in Santa Barbara when he arrived in 1895.

This selection of Brazilian Skyflower was the first selection of the species that we started growing and for many years we simply listed it just Duranta repens and later as Duranta erecta. I has long arching branches bearing sky blue flowers that are lighter in color than the cultivar 'Sapphire Showers'.

Our original cuttings of this selection were taken in 1982 from a plant growing in Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens, a Santa Barbara City Park that was built on the site of the historic El Mirasol Hotel (built in 1903) after being purchased and then donated to the city by Alice Keck Park. The park was landscaped in the late 1970s with a horticultural theme having many uncommon plants based on a design done by landscape architects Grant Castleberg and Sydney Baumgartner. We later called this plant by this cukltivar name to honor Alice Keck Park and to distinguish it from the many other forms of this species that were becoming common in the trade. We grew this nice blue flowering cultivar at our nursery from 1984 until we closed in 2025 also long grew a white flowering selection Duranta erecta 'Alba' and another species in the genus, Duranta stenostachya. 

Information displayed on this page about Duranta erecta 'Alice Keck Park' is based on our research conducted about this plant in our nursery library as well as from information provided by reliable online resources. We also include our own observations made about it as it has grown in the nursery gardens and other gardens visited, as well how the crops of this plant performed in the containers in our nursery field. We will also include comments received from others and welcome hearing from anyone who has information about this plant, particularly if it includes cultural information aiding others to better grow it.