Celosia, Wheatstraw Celosia

This can be a good screening plant. I live in a ground floor apartment and about 50 feet from my porch is this big, ugly, pea-soup-green ...Read Moreelectric transformer on a cement slab. It measures about 5 ft. x 5 ft. - - a great big lump of yuck in the middle of what is otherwise a lovely English cottage style garden. One day I was cruising down a busy street and spied a stand of Wheatstraw Celosia that had been planted between a sidewalk and some shop windows and a brainf**t went off inside my head.

The info on this PlantFiles entry gives a max. ht. of 36 inches, but those I saw that day were 36 inches at the minimum, going up to over 6 ft. Just the sort of plant I needed to hide that monstrous transformer! Harvesting the seeds was extremely easy. Now a nice thicket of these tall and strikingly lovely celosia is growing around the hideous thing, cloaking it with its gorgeous burgundy foliage - - shiny in the sunlight and swaying in breezes with a lovely rustle. It is only the end of May now - - I am so looking forward to a bit more height and the appearance of hundreds of pink-to-red tipped plumes.

If you have anything you want to screen from view in a lovely way, this is a great solution. Though an annual, these will readily self-sow.

This plant comes from Africa, but is used widely in the Orient for hemorrhages, diarrhea, and also clears vision.

I love this plant. I got the seeds in trade, probably not really knowing what it was -- the seeds were very easy to germinate. I used D...Read Moreirect and Winter Sowing methods with high germination rates.

In my garden, the red coloring really stands out. A real showy plant.

Does very well in drought conditions too. Mine gets full sun, and the only water it gets, is when it rains.

Seeds are easy to harvest.

Wonderful straw-like flower when dried. Known as 'Flamingo Feather' in local nurseries (Seattle). Easy to collect seeds from or allow to reseed.