Description
OUT OF STOCK
White spikes in spring, gorgeous en masse. Make a great groundcover for shade.
White spikes in spring, gorgeous en masse. Make a great groundcover for shade.
OUT OF STOCK
White spikes in spring, gorgeous en masse. Make a great groundcover for shade.
Clusters of crimson, star-shaped florets atop 2’ stems bloom their heads off ALL summer into fall.
Size: 24-36”x 12”
Care: Sun in well-drained alkaline soil, drought tolerant
Native: Mediterranean
Wildlife Value: attracts butterflies, bees and hover flies.
Centranthus is from the Greek meaning “spurred flower.” According to Culpepper, an English herbalist from the early 1600’s, this plant comforts the heart and stirs up lust. Parkinson, in 1629 describes it “of a fine red colour, very pleasant to behold.”
Atop a mound of spatula-shaped, crinkled leaves with scalloped edges rises a bounty of 4 to 5 inch tall spikes, each crowned with a hoard of tiny fuchsia-colored trumpets blowing their horns “look at me” in early to mid-summer.
Size: 4-8" x 8-12" spreading slowly by rhizomes
Care: sun to part shade in moist well-drained soil
Native: South Africa
Wildlife Value: Deer resistant. Attracts small bees and butterflies
English adventurer and naturalist William John Burchell (1781-1863) scoured South Africa from 1803 to 1815 collecting more than 50,000 specimens packed in 48 crates. In places unexplored he found insects, animals, fish and unknown plants, this being one. Although he published two volumes of his exploration, he did not finish the last, third volume, leaving another to write the botany. Premier English botanist George Bentham (1800-1884) took up the task authoring Labiatarum Genera et Species, published in 1834. He wrote the first published description and named this tiny plant with outsized charm.
Purple, upfacing bells for months in mid to late summer
Size: 4-6” x 20”
Care: full sun-part shade in moist well-drained soil
Native: Northern Yugoslavia
Awards: England’s Royal Horticultural Society Award of Merit. Top rated Chicago Botanic Garden & Elisabeth Carey Miller Botanical Garden Great Plant Pick.
Campanula is Latin meaning “little bell.” 1st described in Systema Vegetabilium 5: 93 in 1819 by one of its discoverers, Franz Edler von Portenschlag-Ledermayer (1772-1822).
June – September (WOW!) short blue-purple, more blue than purple, spikes of compact flowers bloom on short, slowly creeping mat of sword-shaped foliage that suppresses weeds.
Size: 6-8” x 12”
Care: sun to part shade in well-drained soil
Native: Siberia, Mongolia & Kazakhstan
Wildlife Value: attracts pollinators. Drought tolerant; deer and rabbit resistant
According to Christian tradition, as Jesus carried the cross to Calvary, a woman wiped his face with her handkerchief, leaving the imprint of the features of his face, the vera iconica, meaning “true likeness.” When the Catholic Church canonized the woman, the Church gave her the name Saint Veronica. Medieval gardeners named a different Veronica after her due to the perceived likeness of the flower to her handkerchief. Collected by 1950 Russian botanist Nikolái Pávlov (1893-1971) described and named this in Vestn. Akad. Nauk Kazakhsk. S.S.R v.4 p. 92 (Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR) in 1951. Kazakh is the name of the language of people of Central Asia inhabiting mainly Kazakhstan which became independent of Russia in 1991.