Friday 30 July 2010

This Week's Plant From The Garden - Oenothera Biennis

Or to divs like us, Evening Primrose - also known as Common Evening Primrose (how rude!!) and German Rampion. Evening Primrose is one of those flowers where I knew the name but had no idea what it looked like. We have two of these in the garden at the moment and I'm hoping that they'll seed this year. They're biennials so it will take a couple of years to get them looking as lovely as this again, but I really like them and think they're worth the wait. Ours have grown to about 1.5m and were purchased from an RSPB shop/nature reserve in Norfolk to attract insects and wildlife.
Family: Onagraceae
Position: Sun or light shade in any soil. Ours are in a sunny, dry spot under a tree so they don't get much moisture, but seem to thrive.
Flowers: June through July - really pretty flowers as you can see which are the colour of sunshine.
Dimensions: 90-120cm high and approximately 12cm wide - tall and skinny!
Habit: Biennial wild flower that looks great in amongst the smaller shrubs in the border.
Care: Leave it to do it's thing as it will self seed quite happily. Deadheading recommended - the old flowers are droopy and scruffy looking.
Pruning: not required - just reposition if they spring up where they're not wanted.
Propagation: By seed in spring.
Distribution: Eastern North America and naturalised in Europe. Wild flower so hedgerows, cracks in the pavement, the driveway down the road etc.

Key:
Bold/italics = official data
Everything else = my observations
LxXx

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