Calceolaria arachnoidea
Calceolaria arachnoidea• Click here to visit our Main Plant List page for current availability of this plant
• flowering season: summer into fall
• height: 8 to ten inches with the flowers several inches taller
• Light requirements: sun, afternoon shade where summers are very hot
• Soil requirements: average, well drained
• Water requirments: average
• Growth habit: low, slowly widening clump
• How to propagate: dividing in early summer
• Leaf type: soft, furry gray leaves
• Ways to use it: at the front of a flower garden; in a pot either alone or mixed with other summer flowers
• Special characteristics: the gray leaves complement its own purple flowers as well as all other colors of flowers
• Other points of interests: infrequently seen, this plant is not difficult to grow
The contrast between the gray, felty, spoon-shaped leaves of this plant and its round, darkly purple flowers is dramatic. Coming from from the Andes of Chile, at elevations of 10,000 ft., it can take winter cold to USDA Zone 6. In Chile it is often covered by snow in winter. However in your garden it won't survive if the ground is soggy wet in winter. In the wild it grows in various habitats from dry, rocky hillsides to moist stream banks. Consider planting it into a rock garden or combined with other flowering plants in a container garden. A plant will grow eight to ten inches tall, spreading moderately wider, with flowers several inches above the foliage. It starts to flower in early summer and continues on to the first frosts of fall. Before the blossoms appear, a young plant looks a lot like a plant of lamb's ear, Stachys lanata. Of course these flowers will end any thought that this could be lamb's ear