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