A True Blue Beauty for Shade

It ’s a bit of a mouthful to pronounce , but this little charmer will soon have you calling it “ Wulfy , my little Liebchen . ” The genusWulfeniais in the Plantaginaceae household , which includesPenstemonand the intimate weedPlantago . This hybrid betweenWulfenia orientalisandW. baldacciwas discover by the later German phytologist and alpine nurseryman Wilhelm Schacht , who gave the plant , and the name , to his friend Professor Schwarz . And the professor , we ’re certain , was abide by to have such an amazing works as his namesake .

you’re able to expect nice chunk of evergreen plant foliage whose lightly scallop margins add substantially to its appeal . But the long spring - flowering time of year of blue blooms is why you grow this subtlety - make love perennial . The small blue flowers pull together on the humiliated half of the slightly curved 8 - to- 12 - inch stem and are a custom set for our overwinter Anna ’s hummingbirds . The blue color give some punch to the shade garden and mixes well with many more intimate shady perennial . No disease or pest — not even the slug and snail that fly high in the shade garden — seem to bother this plant .

One cool lineament that we can only impute to intercrossed vigor is that this plant originate rosettes of foliage on the old flower stem . Do n’t be in a hurry to cut back the stems of spent blooms , as this aerial presentation of miniature plants is quiet appeal . Reinforcing the “ slow horticulture ” approach , these plantlet can be removed when fully modernise and treated like easy - to - root word cuttings . have ’s front it — you are go to need a bunch of this beauty , even if you are a collector who garden in drifts of one .

Wulfenia

Wulfenia×schwarzii

Zones:5b–9

condition : Full to partial shade ; dampish grease

Native range : Europe

— Kelly Dodson and Sue Milliken grow some of the coolest plants on the planet at Far Reaches Farm in Port Townsend , Washington .

Illustration : Elara Tanguy

Sources

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Organo Republic 16 Perennial Wildflower seed Mix for Indoor & Outdoors

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