Ceratostigma Species, Blue Leadwood, Hardy Blue Plumbago, Leadwort

I have been growing this plant for about 10 years, and it is one of my favorite perennials. I have divided it a few times and it is now i...Read Moren spots that also have low growing spring flowering bulbs, generally freesia and sparaxis or areas that have California poppies and other annual spring flowers. It has slowly spread in the dry partial shade areas where I have planted it. It blooms better in the spots that get full sun, but does fine under dappled shade too. It is a lovely shade of blue. It does spread by thin (dry spaghetti pasta size) underground rhizomes, but not aggressively enough to call a thug. A one gallon can spread to about 3 feet across in 5 years. I consider it a slow grower, however, it might behave differently under regular irrigation. I have only seen it for sale in nurseries when it is in flower, usually during its peak blooming from June to September around here. Right now, in hot dry August, it is one of the prettier plants in the garden. In October it turns shades of red on the leaves before going dormant until March.

I have a garden client growing this plant, and today we discovered a whitish/greyish fuzz growing on just the upper stems (between the le...Read Moreaves) of the plant. Could this be powdery mildew or some kind of fungus?

Just bought it from Lowes. There were 2 plants coming out of the bottom of the pot from the roots. I cut them off and planted them. ...Read More Just 2 days and the little seedlings look really great. I will keep them in the pot. I have heard that this plant spreads like wild fire. The flowers are a shade of blue that I never seen before.

Update
It didn't make it past the first year. I bought 3 more this year hoping that this time would be better. Another plant that hates the extreme heat here in Central Texas. Too bad. I think that this is a beautiful plant. Can't beat the dark blue blooms. May dig up what is still alive and plant in partial shade/sun. If you live in cool climate, I recommend it. If you live south of Dallas, don't buy it. Way too hot and humid.

This is an exceedingly tidy plan all season. The flowers are brilliant true blue. The fall color is beautiful. I have this planted in man...Read Morey spots in the yard including against the home. It's done very wel no matter where i throe it. l. have 3x4 foot areas from plants I bought less than a year ago.

Stunning Blue.
Spreads slowly by seeds and runners. Is NOT invasive in my area.
Full sun.
Looks rasty til later - a...Read Morend is a later bloomer. But not much else blooming then.
In fall turns lovely reddish/brown.
Let seeds dry on plant. Harvest. Store in Fridge. In Spring they need to be moist/cold stratified for decent germination. Grows easily from seed once you meet this requirement.
Great for banks as a soil stabilizer.

Looks great on banks mixed with yellow Hypericum coris and/or Hypericum calycinum which are also great ground covers.

A beautiful groundcover. Vividly true-blue flowers begin late July/early August and continue till frost. Foliage turns red towards the en...Read Mored of the season, but leaves often start to color in late summer.

This perennial is very late to emerge from dormancy, generally not till June in Boston MA Z6a. This is an opportunity for interplanting with spring bulbs and ephemerals.

I've had a hard time getting this established when planted after midsummer---it grows well the first season but doesn't make it through the winter. Planting extra deeply in spring seems to be the key to getting it to perennialize. And mulching will not only help get it through the winter, it will help suppress the annual weeds that always get a leap on it before its June emergence.

This is fairly deep rooted, and its spread is slow but seemingly inexorable. Plant it where this will be an asset. Not a good neighbor for short perennials. Next time I want to plant it in a border, it will be in a sunken 7 gallon bottomless plastic pot.

According to Armitage, it's hardy to Z5.

I have had no trouble growing this in 5A. I have had it growing right up against the house in part shade, so I think the concrete mass ke...Read Moreeps the soil warmer than the rest of the yard.

It transplants well. This year I will try some away from the house, and see if it continues.

This plant is new in my front yard - from the wild flower seeds it must be, because I know I would recall buying it as a plant and I did ...Read Morenot.
I love the color of the blossoms. I have tried and failed to grow blue flax so this cheers me up - I can have blue! One plant is already showing red on the leaves while blooming - though it is August. Both plants get morning sun until about 3 PM each day.

Heather Y, Brooklyn NY ( 7-a)

Bought one plant about 5 years ago and comes back year after year in my partial shade garden. Beautiful blue flowers and blooms until fro...Read Morest here. I have taken some cuttings, dipped in rooting hormone and created a beautiful edging for my 20 foot long patio garden. For those of you in hotter zones, I suggest the cultivar named "Plumbago auriculata" which grows in more tropical zones.

I'm in Minnesota, zones 3 & 4 depending on winter and microclimate in my yard. I have a beautiful, winter hardy plumbago that has been go...Read Moreing for over 20 years now. It has cobalt blue flowers--gorgeous! None of the nurseries around here are familiar with it, so it must be a sport of some kind. LOVE IT!

This is a beautiful little plant. I bought it in 2011 and planted it in a 16" container along with 'October Daphne Stonecrop'. Covered i...Read Morey with a felt fabric winter cover and it not only survived but became more lush. It gets 4-6 hrs of sun morning to afternoon. No bugs no wilting. I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Great Lakes...Lake Ontario...Zone 5b. The color of the two plants in August to October is spectacular!

I have only had this plant for about 2 weeks now. It is in a container with other plants. When I first planted it, it was not doing to we...Read Morell. It was drooping and getting pale. So, I dug it up and planted it just a little deeper, enough just to cover a little up the stems. It's doing great now. I guess they just like their feet planted firmly in the ground. I have noticed that it is not real common for my zone, but it seems to have success in partial shade here.

texaslady62

I love it, my husband hates it. I love the 3-season interest, beautiful blue blooms, burgundy foliage, and its tough-as-nails performanc...Read Moree. My husband thinks it chokes everything else in the bed. Oh well. I'm redesigning my entry landscape so I'm going to try to remove it. If it "wins" it gets to stay!

This is always hardy in Connecticut, without protection. In my climate, it spreads SLOWLY...my patch is 3 X 3 feet after 12 years! It ...Read Moreseems to do best with some shade (not shade all day), otherwise the flowers do not last as long. Here, it flowers from August off and on until it gets cooler in late September. Excellent as a weed supressor and bugs do not bother it!

I'm in zone 5, and I planted this 3 years ago in a west and north facing corner where two down spouts live. It is very dark, wet, and th...Read Moree coolest area on my property. Planted as nothing but a stem, it has grown to about 3" x 4" to my sadness. I wanted to propagate to get several, but it is too small, although it turns reddish and flowers. I will be transplanting to a sunnier and drier location this spring. I had wanted this to spread along this area, but am thinking now that ferns will do better there.

It's been in my garden for at least 50 years. I found it in part shade surviving amidst weeds, and have spread it around by division. Mos...Read Moretly I have it edging shrubs and let it go into the grass. Gorgeous flowers, neat foliage, good weed suppressant, grows in sunnier spots where sometimes vinca has trouble. Fast spreading, but so far I like what it's doing.

Yet another plant I would have never thought of getting owing to how they look in the store (like, really nothing). Man...

...Read More After being on microdrip for about 6 months to establish the roots these are just rocking away in the drought conditions we are having. Blue blooms all over the place. Make a wonderful trailing plant in the raised beds

This is a very easy to grow plant. It blooms most of the growing season with nice fall coloration. The plant does send runners that go ...Read Morefar from the base so be vigilant to keep these under control if you dont want it to spread.

very hardy, very beautiful shade tolerant ground cover. I have some planted with some periwinkle and i love the bright beautiful color of...Read More these plumbago the most and it blooms so much longer than the periwinkle and spreads so very beautifully. highly recomended..mike.

This is an outstanding performer in my garden. It has colonized large areas in my garden, and because it is such a delight, I am happy t...Read Moreo let it do that, although it is easy to pull out or transplant if it exceeds its allocated space. It blooms from late spring to late fall for me. I love its cobalt-blue flowers. In autumn, the leaves take on red tones and the blue-red effect is stunning. It does not flag on hot summer days and gets by with minimal summer watering, although it will accept more. It goes briefly dormant from around mid December to mid February and then comes roaring back It is a great ground cover and carpeting type of plant. It even out-competes bermuda grass and this is a big plus in California.

If you are looking for hardy groundcover that comes back every year in the midwest this is a great choice. It has survived cats and kids...Read More walking on it and once established doesn't need watering unless the weather is really dry. The downside is that it does spread. We have it in a raised bed adjacent to a paving stone sidewalk. it sprouts out of the cracks in the landscape timbers and even out onto the sidewalk. It does not spread into the shady area, so did not take over the entire bed which is part sunny and part shady. In trying to take some of it out to move to an area where I dont care if it spreads, have had no luck transplanting it, the underground root network makes it hard to get enough root to let it get established.

I love this as a ground cover, it came with the property so the patch has to be at least 50 yrs old. Transplanted it in full bloom last f...Read Moreall, it never even wilted ( I did keep it well watered) and is coming up again this spring. It spreads but is not invasive in my zone 6b garden in morning sun.

I truelly love this plant, sadly, the second winter here in zone 5a wiped it out. I wish they had a hardy variety. Some plants can push ...Read Morethe envelope. Not this one.

I just planted this about 6-8 weeks ago, but it's doing fantastic in poor, dry soil with full to dappled sun from about 9-2. The plants w...Read Moreere in bad shape when I bought them on sale, but they did great as soon as planted. It's been very dry here and I have to ration my cistern water, but so far so good. Beautiful blue flowers. I thought this baby must be invasive...but the comments here are not too bad. Thanks all!

I purchased one from the botanical garden fair in May and it was labelled as zone 4 (Canadian). Is it a mistake?

This is the wonderful groundcover with the brightest blue flowers. I planted mine in part sun and they have done well. they died back ...Read Morein winter, I forgot about them and then, what a nice surprise this spring. Have been blooming non-stop. I bought it at CJ's recommendation.

This thrives for me in Zone 5. My plants are in a rock garden that I don't give supplemental watering and they have been growing like cra...Read Morezy. My husband mows it down every spring, and I've since read that you should cut it back in spring so maybe that's why it does so well. I've even seen some shoots in my neighbor's lawn, through the chain link fence (now I try to keep it reigned in better).

I got a tip to use this to hide the die-back of spring blooming bulbs. Seems like a great fit, the late spring emergence would be a plus!

This is NOT Plumbago auriculata aka cape plumbago, leadwort. This is Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, meaning it resembles plumbago. It is co...Read Moremmonly called dwarf plumbago. They are both in the same family. If your plant gets three feet high and four feet wide, you have Plumbago auriculata. It doesn't turn red in the fall. This is a groundcover, and a beautiful one at that. Mine fries in full sun, but it loves it in morning sun to about 2 o'clock sun.

This is one of my favorite plants. The plants I have had for many years begin flowering in LATE SPRING and continue until frost! No bet...Read Moreter blue flower out there!

A nice looking plant, especially in fall when the leaves turn red. My information says it is hardy in zones 5-9. Blooms July - October ...Read Morein my garden.

I have used plumbago in hanging baskets, (with the coco liners). As the plants grow it is easy to use hairpins to train them down the sid...Read Morees of the pot, where they eventually turn an ordinary planter into a big globe of blue flowers. Very pretty.

I want to remove this plant. It was planted on top of bulbs to mark them. It has never looked nice. Right now it is floppy, no flowers...Read More, unattractive foilage - etc. Just a blob. It is spreading which I don't like. I don't think I like groundcovers anyway. I like to soil available to me at a moments notice. It is growing in mostly sun in the summer and more shade now.

A really delightful plant; the blue is one of the best I've ever had in my garden, and it is in bloom for a very long time in late summer...Read More. The reddish foliage in the fall is beautiful, too; and extends the season.

In three years, mine has spread to about 3' around in a shady spot in central Ohio. It's close to the house, so it's doing well, even tho' we're zone 5.

Now that I've found this plant I will never be without it!

I planted one small plumbago in a protected corner with some sun, close to an outdoor spigot. This plant has gone bonkers!!! At least thr...Read Moreee feet high and spread out to about four feet. Apparently, it's in TOO good a spot. I checked your website to see if I could move it and I see that I should wait until spring. I will re-plant in a much larger area next time.

I used to have my plumbago in the dapple shade. Well it died there. so I planted it in full sun and it has spread into the next garden....Read More You would think it was a ground cover the way it has taken off.

Even though this reportedly is hardy only to Zone 6, if planted in a protected area (moist, well-drained, too) this is certainly hardy in...Read More our zone 5A/4B climate. Last winter was particularly rough in terms of zero-minus and no snow cover; lots of gardeners (me too) lost lots of perennials - but this one pulled through with flying colors! My next-door neighbor is actually reconsidering where she will keep it, since it is so prolific as a ground cover! And the colors in late summer through fall are spectacular! The bright blue flowers against the burnt-red foliage is hard to beat!

San Antonio, TX
Last summer, I planted 3 young plants, 5 inches apart, in a partial shade location to test them out: 2 died and on...Read Moree barely survived (in the area that received more sunlight). The surviving plant has done well this summer and is starting to bloom now, in late August. Perhaps I planted them too late in the summer last year. The blooms are beautiful. I will test them again by planting them in the spring.

The only reason this isn't THE most popular groundcover is because it's herbaceous (dies back to the ground each winter.)

...Read MoreOther than that, it's got everything going for it - nice, lush foliage in the spring, turns a wonderful red color in the fall, and has electric blue flowers from mid-summer on.

I've learned the hard way to increase my stock only in the spring - the plants resist (by dying) being moved from mid-summer onward. The brittle, cream-colored roots have tell-tale rings around them, making them easy to spot. When they're still somewhat pliable, quickly move them to a pot or another location, plant them an inch or two deep and keep the soil moist. Soon you'll see new growth emerging.

This woody perennial emerges very late in spring, just as bluebells are going dormant, making it an ideal follower, especially to maintai...Read Moren the blue color in the bed. A medium frost brings the best color to the foliage, but frequently is not enough to end the flowering, thus getting sky-blue flowers on red-foliaged plants.

Very easy to propagate these, either by lifting and dividing the clump, removing a piece of underground runner, layering a soft new shoot, or a woody old shoot after nicking it slightly.

Grows in full sun to full shade, but best flowering with mostly sun.

Plumbago (also commonly called leadwort) is a wiry, mat-forming perennial which spreads by rhizomes to form an attractive ground cover. T...Read Moreypically grows 6-10" tall on generally erect stems rising from the rhizomes. Oval to obovate, shiny, medium green leaves (to 2" long) turn bronze-red in autumn. Terminal clusters of 5-petaled, gentian blue flowers (1/2 to 3/4" diameter) appear above the foliage over a long summer to frost bloom period. Flowers resemble those of woodland phlox.

This hard perennial has wide lance-shaped leaves that become bronze-red during autumn. The terminal clusters of blue flowers appear fro...Read Morem late summer onwards. It brings late color to mixed borders. Light soil and a sunny site suit this attractive plant.

It is easily increased by lifting and dividing clumps in spring just before shoots appear.