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Plumbago auriculata |
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| | Climbing into a salvia 'Hot Lips' |
| Synonym(s) |
Plumbago capensis |
| Common name |
plumbago |
| Family |
plumbaginaceae |
| Life cycle |
tender shrub (Z8-11)   |
| Flowers |
soft blue (summer-fall) |
| Size |
24-36" |
| Light |
sun-part shade |
| Cultural notes |
well-drained garden soil, not too dry; heat-tolerant |
Clusters of five-petaled phlox-like flowers on a woody perennial/shrub native to South Africa. The specimen in the photo below was just planted, in mid-spring. It continued to bloom off and on through its first summer, and was looking rather nice by summer's end (photo at top), but still with decidedly the appearance of a herbaceous perennial. Plumbago seems to inhabit the annual shelves at local nurseries, so I kept my fingers crossed that it would persist in our garden – and it did, although it died back to the ground after winter freezing weather. In its next season, it got off to a slow start, but by late summer it had climbed up into a neighboring shrubby salvia, now able to display its flowers closer to eye level. Eventually, I'll need to decide if and how to prune our plant, to train it up a nearby fence, or just let it sprawl into and across anything it encounters.
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| | Small plant, just after making the transition from its nursery pot |
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| Moved to a new location where it doesn't have a neighbor to climb into, it acts as a laxly upright shrub
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In our garden, this plant grows in the following area: back fence border About my plant portraits
PlantLinks to other web pages about Plumbago auriculata
Visitors to this page have left the following comments| j.w. plankeel | Dec 01, 2017 | Don't worry; when it sprouts in spring you can easily see what shoots are strong and likely to flower and which will just produce a few leaves. Remove those. It probly will be one feet high afterwards, but rapidly grow again. |
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Last modified:
April 28, 2020
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