Plant of the Month – October
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This tough and tidy perennial sub-shrub brings long-lasting color to borders, rock gardens, and even containers and flower boxes. Since the flowers turn a rusty color in age, you get a variety of hues with each plant.
Sulfur Buckwheat
Eriogonum umbellatum
- Plant Form: Evergreen Sub-shrub
- Water Use: Very Low
- Mature Size: 1-2 ft. tall x 1-3 ft. wide
- Exposure: Full Sun, Part Sun
- Bloom Time: Summer (June-Aug), Fall (Sept-Oct)
- Native to: California, Western North America, Central Canada (4,000 feet – 10,000 feet)
- Hardiness: Cold hardy to 15°F
Sulfur Buckwheat creates a big garden impact despite being such a diminutive plant. This exceedingly variable species can vary from a small perennial herb only 3 inches tall to a sprawling shrub over 3 feet across, with flowers white, cream, or sulfur-yellow depending on the variety. All have loose mats of mounding grey foliage, with blankets of umbrella-like flowers on short stalks. Blossoms mature to orange or rusty red in fall and persist on the plant, giving the illusion of an extremely long bloom season of variable color. These low, mat-forming perennials from dry mountain slopes are extremely tolerant of both heat and cold, and thrive in dry, hot, exposed sites, needing good drainage and very little water after becoming established. Check with your nursery for the best variety for your particular garden. Sulfur Buckwheat shines in rock gardens with other compact, evergreen shrubs, and in the front of dry, sunny, mixed borders, as well as in containers.
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