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Lobelia cardinalis |
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| Common name |
cardinal flower |
| Family |
campanulaceae |
| Life cycle |
perennial |
| Flowers |
red (summer) |
| Size |
24" |
| Light |
sun-part shade |
| Cultural notes |
moist soil |
From seed  |
germinate at room temperature with exposure to light
detailed seed-starting info below
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US native famous for its popping-scarlet flowers in mid-summer. We've had mixed success with this plant; it really insists on consistent moisture, and will fade away if drought strikes. One year I planted one in a pot placed along the edge of our little pond, the pot not quite submerged. It did marvellously that season, but did not return the next year. Our latest attempt (following a generous gift by a plant sale customer) is similar: set in a pot placed in our big pond's filtration bog, the plant has consistently moist soil. It certainly likes its current lot - we'll see if this one survives winter.
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We left this plant behind in our Pennsylvania garden (and wish it well); we don't grow it in Houston. Seed for this plant is included on my seed trade list One or more images of this plant are included in my stock photo catalog About my plant portraits
PlantLinks to other web pages about Lobelia cardinalis
Visitors to this page have left the following comments| veronica utter April 2010 | Apr 23, 2010 | Have this lovely one for about 5 years. Had read that it requires moisture. I live in NY State and have the original one in a garden that gets good sun and is well drained. Occasionally I will water it especially if it is hot and dry. Never had any trouble with my cardinal. Divided the original one last year and put it in a location with less sun and it is doing fine after a severe winter. Also bought a new plant last summer and put it in a third garden and checked last week and it is doing fine. I have had very good luck with this one. It is really brilliant red. Georgous. I would like to find a blue one now. |
| Glenn Steinberg | Mar 29, 2011 | I've had a lot of trouble with Cardinal Flower too. It just doesn't seem to live long. I have a bog garden in which it thrives for a year or two and then dies out, and I have a very-moist-but-not-quite-boggy place, where the Cardinal Flower also seems to live happily for a year or two and then disappear. I don't seem to get any re-seeding either, despite seed heads that drop myriads of seed when shaken. I really like the color (really vibrant, almost glowing red), and it's a very nice plant generally. I just wish it would live longer. I understand that there are some shorter cultivars that have a longer lifespan, but I haven't tried any of them yet. |
| Matthew | Mar 30, 2011 | This beautiful native is hard to establish in cold climates. Here in the southeast it grows as a very hardy perennial in bogs, seepages, on riverbanks and in low areas. It needs much less water than blue lobelia. |
| David Mills | Aug 17, 2012 | Slugs and snails love it..... so mine are in a basket in the middle of a shallow leader to our (very small)pond. they have lasted for four years now. Locally I know of a clump in someone's front garden growing in a crack in the concrete.... that is one way of keeping the roots moist I suppose and so far the molluscs don't seem to have found it! I love L.cardinalis 'Queen Victorai' lovely dark leaves.
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| nosykate | Sep 18, 2013 | No problem with this one in my southern coastal Massachusetts garden. I have the native species as well as Golden Torch and a short Fan series hybrid. I have moved the native clump twice now (to give it more room) and it has been unfazed by the move and bloomed and grew the same season, as well as sending up renegade lingerers in the prior locations year after year. The current large clumps of natives grow to about 4-5' in part-shade, one clump in ordinary garden and one in a boggy location. They can be a bit floppy, leaning and then turning upward. The Fan hybrid is growing and blooming very well in its first year, also in the boggy spot, but I suspect it will not overwinter. The golden torch clump is magnificent in a very wet (sometimes standing water) and mostly shaded location, this year (its third) towering upright and strong, well over my head with many bloom stalks. I have not noticed any self-seeded offspring. I used to have Queen Victoria lobelia but it was leggy and awkward, and did not last the winter anyway. |
- Seed from '06 trade. Baggy 70F with light (3%G, 24-38d)
- Seed from '07 trade. Baggy 70F with light (18+%G, 15-29d)
- Seed from '09 garden. Baggy 70F with light (10/many G, 15-32d)
- Seed from '08 garden. Baggy 70F with light (12%G, 10-30d)
- Same seed as above. Surface-sowed to pot at 70F (reasonable G, 18-25d)
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