An erect, clump-forming plant that is primarily grown for its blue spring flowers, feathery green summer foliage and golden fall color. Powdery blue, 1/2″ star-like flowers appear in late spring atop stems rising to 3′ tall.
Size: 2-3’ x 2-3’ Care: full sun to part shade in well-drained soil Native: Ouachita Mountains in central Arkansas.
First recorded in the 1770s as A. angustifolia, but later named Hubricht’s Amsonia, after Leslie Hubricht, an American biologist who re-discovered it in the 1940s.
Size: 4” x 4” Care: sun in well-drained to moist well-drained soil Native: Alps & Pyrenees Mountains
Grown in gardens for thousands of years. Sempervivum means “live forever.” Romans planted Hens and chicks on their roofs to ward off lightning. As a succulent it holds water and is probably more difficult to catch fire. “This practice was preserved for historians when Charlemagne (720-814), first Holy Roman Emperor and unifier of a large part of northern Europe, ordered that all villagers within his crown lands plant houseleeks on their roofs, presumably as a safety measure. He decreed: Et ille hortulanus habeat super domum suam Iovis barbam. (And the gardener shall have house-leeks growing on his house. Capitulare de villis, about 795, LXX.)”
Tanacetum niveum Silver tansy, Snow tansy Z 5-9
Profusion of small classic daisies May-July atop fragrant silver foliage