Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Voted best Townsendia

By me.

For the lazy gardener like myself who wants long-lived. Which is a real complaint to be made about many townsendias (Townsend Daisies) in the garden.  I've grown about a dozen species, and none were bad.  But I've passed that kick, and Townsendia hookeri persists.  It seems adaptable to clay and sandy soils.  Mine is in clay, in a dry rockery (watered ten times per year: bimonthly in summer).  They usually bloom in February.



Also super easy from seed and blooms the year after sowing.  (I recommend winter-sowing with a peagravel topdressing in small pots.)  It's generally from the Eastern slope of Colorado all up the prairie into Western Cananda, but it shows up in some of our dry Western Mountains among sagebrush, too, where its geodesic seed heads open to tumble into the wind like so many blown kisses.







If I were a romantic landscaper who wanted long-lived plants for laymen clients who aren't the kind of hardcore hobbyist to home-grow scads of replacement plants, but I wanted to hook them on rock garden plants, this would be a good one.



Oh wait, I am.




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