This delightful perennial has chocolate coloured flowers and its scent is distinctly chocolatey too. Flowering from mid-summer to mid-autumn, this is a quiet perennial that should be planted in a position where its scent can be enjoyed and its flowers closely inspected. They have a velvet texture and a slightly darker brown disc at their centres. Its spoon shaped leaves have toothed leaflets. Coming from Mexico, it is susceptible to cold and should be mulched in autumn or its tubers lifted and stored through the winter. Grow it in moderately fertile, moist but well drained soil in full sun.
Propagation: Root basal cuttings with bottom heat in early spring. |
Heleniums come from swampy meadows and woodland margins in North and Central America and are delightful daisy-like perennials flowering from summer to autumn and are a magnet for bees. Why not try 'Moerheim Beauty' planted in clumps along a stream bank? The effect can be enchanting. Its flower heads have coppery red petals and a dark brown central disc. It is as happy in an herbaceous or mixed border as it is beside water, provided it is given a sunny situation and grown in fertile, moist but well drained soil. Divide it every two or three years to encourage it to flower. Heleniums make excellent cut flowers.
Propagation: Root basal cuttings in containers in a cold frame in spring. Divide in autumn or spring. |
This salvia is really a shrub, but it looks more like a perennial and may be treated as such. It flowers over a long period from late summer to autumn, so helps to prolong a border's interest. It is a graceful plant, up to four foot tall with deep crimson flowers in terminal racemes. Occasionally, the flowers are magenta, purple or pink, but still attractive. As it comes from Arizona and New Mexico, it may need some protection in cooler areas in winter. For best results, it should be grown in full sun with light, moderately fertile, humus rich, moist but well drained soil.
Propagation: Root basal or softwood cuttings in spring or early summer or semi-ripe cuttings in late summer or autumn with bottom heat. |
