09.07.09 - 17:35 -
ATTRACTIVE. Hardy Plumbago is drought tolerant.
Suggestion
Unmistakable at this time of year is the distinctive blue of the shrub Plumbago, bursting in masses through wire fences or over walls and sticking to one’s clothes as one passes.
A close relative is Ceratostigma plumbaginoides (Hardy Plumbago). Another long Latin name to contend with! While Plumbago is light blue in flower, Ceratostigma is a richer dark blue and is becoming more popular. It is widely available in garden centres in May/June when it comes into flower.
As an herbaceous perennial, it should be planted out in autumn or early spring before the plants come back into leaf. As we rarely find non-flowering plants for sale, we must buy them in flower, a very unsuitable time for planting out.
Hardy Plumbago is indeed hardy, standing temperatures down to -10 °C, while the scorching summer sun seems only to stimulate flowering.
Hardy Plumbago is well worth trying out in the garden. This delightful small sub-shrub (up to 50 centimetres high) is drought tolerant once established and free flowering into autumn, when the foliage turns red before dying down. The plant then remains dormant as rhizomes until the soil warms in spring.
The deep blue flowers are seen to greatest effect if planted in small drifts. If you do this, then I recommend inter-planting other sub-shrubs, for example grey-leaved lavender and Helichrysum petiolare, and seasonal bulbs such as early spring flowering Narcissi, to add interest in winter when the Hardy Plumbago is not in flower.
Mature plants of more than a few years can be divided and replanted.
Under our harsh conditions, gardening success usually requires spring or autumn planting. Sometimes, garden centres will put at the back summer flowering beauties like Hardy Plumbago that at these times are not so pretty to look at. These are the plants that gardeners will do well to notice. Keeping plants bought in flower in their original pots until autumn can be a struggle, but easier than expecting delicate roots to take hold in scorched soil as dry and hard as concrete!
Blue has always been my favourite colour. I can never resist adding Hardy Plumbago to my trolley each time I see it for sale!
