This flower is a beautiful color and form but the thorns are deadly and you need to wear heavy gloves when handling it in the fall. I rip...Read Moreped mine out because I don’t enjoy being pricked!
I grew the plant easily from seed last year. I planted it in the fall and the seedling grew through the Z8b winter and bloomed in the lat...Read Moree spring. It has returned this year and is blooming in May. It is planted in limey marly limestone rubble that has been amended with granite sand and compost. It had a VERY wet spring and then survived till November with out hardly any rain in Texas. It was a brutal summer with 2 months and not a drop and the fall rains were 2 months late.It looked dried out but seemed to have some life in the base. It returned to bloom this year. Some small seedlings that I started last spring also survived and are blooming. I think I watered them twice the whole summer. This plant takes a strongly alkaline soil and drought. My kind of plant. I am now trying to see how it does in good garden soil in part shade. I also planted it in full brutal Texas sun on a slope of gritty soil to see how it takes that piece of mistreatment. So far it is trudging along, but it is May. It seems like a very versatile plant. The seedling sends out quite a long root for the size of the top growth.
This plant is unforgettably gorgeous. I planted two of them very late in the season two years ago, and was disappointed that they got sco...Read Morerched and didn't come back the following year. Then last week I noticed a few stems of it peering out from under the hedge close to where I planted the originals. Bonus good luck: found more at the store today.
I also grew this from seed last year. It is just blooming now, the following June. I find the combination of the gray foliage and the b...Read Moreurgundy flower spike delightful. For me this is a plant well worth the effort to keep it by division or starting new seedlings.
'Beaujolais' is a beautiful plant that appears to be the same as the species. Commercial plants are seed-grown.
This speci...Read Morees is not to be confused with either the widely invasive purple loosestrife or the thuggish gooseneck loosestrife.
Burgundy loosestrife is a plant of quiet beauty with a very long season of bloom. Bloom begins by Memorial Day here in Boston. Flowers proceed on the flower spikes from the bottom upwards, and the spikes continue to lengthen and produce new buds at the tip for month after month. No deadheading is necessary. If you cut the flower spike at the base, multiple secondary spikes will form. Flowers are not purple but a very dark burgundy red that's almost black. The leaves have a silver stripe down the middle, and a subtle silvery bluish tone over all.
This is a well-behaved clump-former, and does not spread underground like Lysimachia clethroides (gooseneck loosestrife). It's really kind of a wimp. I'm trying it a second time---lost it once during the winter, after planting it in too much shade. It is said to be a short-lived perennial (or perhaps a biennial) that---like purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) or feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium)---maintains itself (where happy) by self-sowing (though so far I've seen no seedlings).
Unlike some of its congeners, this is not weedy or aggressive in the garden, nor has it been reported to naturalize anywhere in North America. The USDA maintains a huge database of plants that have naturalized in North America, and this species is conspicuously absent. It is also absent from the definitive and exhaustive BONAP atlas.
The common name that heads this listing ("purple gooseneck loosestrife") is not widely used, and it invites confusion with both gooseneck loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides) and purple loosestrife (Lythrum virgatum and Lythrum salicaria), which are famously invasive. This plant is more commonly (and less confusingly) called burgundy loosestrife.
Update June 9, 2014: I bought one last year for the second time, and for the second time, it has failed to survive its first winter for me. But yesterday, I noticed a small crop of little seedlings where it grew last season. YAY!
August 2014: Seedlings transplanted to full sun grew well, those in part shade have languished.
June 3 2016: Plants planted last year in an overly irrigated bed with poor drainage look beautiful and are now beginning to bloom. I've also known this plant to do well on a dry sandy south-facing hillside in full sun.
Love this plant. Grew fast and beautifully. Heavy flood rain beat it up quite a but though but even with it flopped to the side some it s...Read Moretill is vibrant
I planted two of these in a border in late spring/early summer. They looked good for about a month and then started to decline. Somethi...Read Moreng, I assume insects, chewed up these and the lysimachia punctata planted near it, and it looked just terrible. Eventually it all withered and died. No other plants or shrubs in the vicinity were attacked like this. Everything I read about this type of plant indicates it has few pest problems, so I'm just confounded.
Just planted this in my yard and excited to see how it does. It is absolutlely beautiful. It will get some sun in my yard - I am interest...Read Moreed to see how it does in the heat. Planted it with sunset echinachea and freisland salvia, veronia too.
I also started this plant from seed, in my greenhouse, and now have three robustly beautiful, blooming plants. I am wondering if anyone ...Read Moreknows if I should cut the bloomstalks down or let them reseed, as I believe it behaves as a biennial, to ensure constancy in the garden? I have had some lysimachias that were sleeping dragons, ugh! Sharon/Plantations50
I started this plant from seed and it germinated readily in a greenhouse in February. Added it to my garden last year and am astonished ...Read Moreat its beauty in just one year. Love it and recommend it to a lot of people.
This flower is a beautiful color and form but the thorns are deadly and you need to wear heavy gloves when handling it in the fall. I rip...Read More
I grew the plant easily from seed last year. I planted it in the fall and the seedling grew through the Z8b winter and bloomed in the lat...Read More
This plant is unforgettably gorgeous. I planted two of them very late in the season two years ago, and was disappointed that they got sco...Read More
I also grew this from seed last year. It is just blooming now, the following June. I find the combination of the gray foliage and the b...Read More
'Beaujolais' is a beautiful plant that appears to be the same as the species. Commercial plants are seed-grown.
This speci...Read More
Love this plant. Grew fast and beautifully. Heavy flood rain beat it up quite a but though but even with it flopped to the side some it s...Read More
I planted two of these in a border in late spring/early summer. They looked good for about a month and then started to decline. Somethi...Read More
Just planted this in my yard and excited to see how it does. It is absolutlely beautiful. It will get some sun in my yard - I am interest...Read More
I also started this plant from seed, in my greenhouse, and now have three robustly beautiful, blooming plants. I am wondering if anyone ...Read More
I started this plant from seed and it germinated readily in a greenhouse in February. Added it to my garden last year and am astonished ...Read More