 |
Oxypetalum coeruleum |
 |
| | Mingling nicely with gaura and other perennials in April of its second year in our Texas garden |
|
Native of Central and South America that can supposedly be used as an annual in Pennsylvania's climate. In my first attempt, the first-year plants never flowered (and of course didn't return for a second year). A second attempt didn't fare any better – but once we moved to the Houston area, chances of success improved. We purchased two 'Heavenborn' cultivars as annuals from a local nursery, and those started showing off their five-petaled icy blue flowers a week later. They kept on blooming on somewhat unruly stems all year, and somewhat to my surprise, stayed evergreen even through a harsh January freeze, pushing up new growth by late February.
|
| | Lots of flowers, not a great garden habit. I'll have to experiment with how to make it work in mixed plantings. |
| 
| | Skipper feeding on its flowers one July morning |
|
| | Milkweed-like seedpods in late October |
|
This plant used to grow in our garden, but it slipped away... About my plant portraits
PlantLinks to other web pages about Oxypetalum coeruleum
Visitors to this page have left the following comments| John | Feb 25, 2013 | I had self collected seed of this 3 years ago . In the next Spring it germinated erratically -very poor. The next 2 years nothing. I put my remaing seed into cell packs under a dome and on a heating mat -soil temp 85-90 degrees. In 3 days I had 100% germination. Here in Portland Oregon I have to pot up first year plants in full sun and over winter them. The flowers are beautiful-i cut them all. If you leave them on the plant they will set very quickly and form the typical milkweed shaped pod and will stop flowering . |
- Seed from '05 trade. Baggy 70F (58%G, 7-20d)
- Same seed as above. Baggy 70F (100%G, 13-20d)
I welcome comments about my web pages; feel free to use the form below to
leave feedback about this particular page. For the benefit of other visitors
to these pages, I will list any relevant comments you leave, and if
appropriate, I will update my page to correct mis-information. Faced with an
ever-increasing onslaught of spam, I'm forced to discard any comments including
html markups. Please submit your comment as plain text. If you have a
comment about the website as a whole, please leave it in my
guestbook. If you
have a question that needs a personal response, please
e-mail me.
common mis-spellings: caeruleum
Last modified:
April 08, 2018
Contact me
|
