Phygelius 'Moonraker'
Phygelius 'Pink Sensation'
Phygelius 'Devil's Tears'This hardy perennial is native to South Africa where it does not die down in their mild winters. In my area ( I'm located at the bottom of it's hardiness range at Zone 8a --- roughly 15f/-9c) it dies almost to the ground before re surging in Spring. All thou it has Fuchsia in it's common name and has a fuchsia look, it's actually in the Scrophulariaceae family being closely related to penstemon. In the past few years it has been hybridized to create many new exciting colours.
It has been growing in popularity the past decade because it blooms for months and has very few pests. In my area it starts blooming in June and goes strong till the first hard frost, the end of October for me. Phygelius grows to 3 to 4 feet (1.2 meters) and spreads by underground runners and prostrate branches to the same width. It is easily divided if it get out of hand.
I like to pair it with daisy-like flowers creating a very easy casual look. Finally the reddish and darker pink varieties are highly attractive to hummingbirds.
6 comments:
Those Phygelius are not only attractive to hummingbirds ;-), what lovely flowers they have. BTW how lucky you are to have hummingbirds in the garden.
Wow, those are nice....wonder if I could grow one as a houseplant? Thank you for this post, I think I'll try and grow one by seed and see what happens.
Yolanda, Yes I feel very lucky to hummingbirds in my garden. They are not year round visitors in my garden, they are around for about 8 months. Seattle which is very close and a tiny bet warmer has some that do not migrate. Anyway they are a joy to watch.
Lisa, I have never heard of growing them inside, let alone overwintering them inside, But you never know. Let me know how it goes.
What a sweet plant it is :) in my zone (6) would be annual, but didn't see it before. And hummingbirds - you are lucky to have them in the garden,
Greetings
I live in zone 5-6 (in a mild winter) I overwintered devils tears last year. It was slow to start and didn't start blooming until the end of July, but it did survive. Next year I am going to bring it out of the basement a little earlier.
gardensbybob.blogspot.com; You saved my day again.
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