Re: [gardeners] Annual Plumbago?

Catharine Vinson (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:36:59 +0000

Rosemary wrote:

> Hi all: Tell me - WHAT is an annual plumbago?? Ran across one at a nursery
> today and it looked like the perfect plant for one of my whisky barrels.

It's a wonderful plant. It's a tender perennial rather than an annual. 
"Real" name is Plumbago auriculata. Often sold as Cape Plumbago. It was a 
garden staple in Houston...it can take brutally hot sun and high humidity. 

My cousin Sadie of the Flaming Red Hair used to have a mound of it that 
must have been 5 feet high and 10-12 feet in diameter. Pale blue tubular 
flowers. It's also terrific in big hanging baskets. It's a "sort of" 
climber....a shrub with very lax limbs that can get to be about 8  feet 
long. A Loose Woman is how Sadie would have described it.

I grow it in a big pot here in Atlanta and drag it into the basement  over 
the winter.  The top growth dies at about 30F; the root will live as long 
as it doesn't get below about 25F. There is a white form, too. I have a 
small plant of it at the base of a rustic tuteur that "houses" an Ernest 
Markham clematis. The plumbago leans more than climbs and keeps the roost 
of the clematis cool. I'll take cuttings to overwinter so I can have it 
next year.

Catharine/Atlanta, zone 7b