Plant of the Month – April 2014

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Profuse balls of white to pink flowers fill the spaces in your garden as baby's breath does in a bouquet.

Profuse balls of white to pink flowers fill the spaces in your garden as baby’s breath does in a bouquet.

California Buckwheat

Eriogonum fasciculatum

 

  • Plant Form: Evergreen Shrub
  • Water Use: Very Low
  • Mature Size: 2’ tall x 4-5’ wide
  • Exposure: Full Sun
  • Bloom Time: Spring, Summer, Fall (April – November)
  • Native to: Southern California (below 7,000 feet), Arizona, Nevada, Utah
  • Hardiness: Cold Hardy to 15°F

 

 

California Buckwheat is an extremely drought-tolerant, evergreen shrub forming a rounded clump with many stems. White to pink flowers grow in dense clusters on thin stalks above small, dark green leaves. The round, headlike flower clusters become pink with age, and dry to a reddish-brown, often persisting until the next flowering season. A fast-growing plant that needs full sun and well-drained soil. This valuable landscape plant is great for erosion control on slopes, to replant disturbed sites, soften rock gardens, and complement more vertical plants like sages, ephedras, penstemons, and desert marigolds. California Buckwheat fills in garden spaces like baby’s breath fills in a bouquet. A favorite source of nectar for butterflies, bees, and other beneficial insects; bees collect the pink pollen to make delicious buckwheat honey.