Colorful Lupines -Drought Resistant and Gorgeous
Colorful Lupines -Perennials That Bloom all Summer
You need look no further than the wild to find drought resistant ground covers and shrubs. On Monday we went walking through what used to be a ranch overlooking the sea. It’s now been turned back into wetland and, besides a few dozen cows munching away happily, is left to its own devices. That means that the wild flowers have repopulated the area, along with several species of duck, Red Ringed blackbirds and Canadian geese to mention a few.
Amongst all the wonderful wild flowers, I was delighted to see lovely, colorful lupines starting to flower. There is a wonderful mix of them, from dainty blue ground covers to good sized, yellow flowered shrubs that are only starting to bud now.
Colorful and Drought Resistant Ground Covers and Shrubs – Perfect For Dry Conditions
Colorful lupines are drought resistant ground covers and shrubs that bloom all summer, coming back year after year, some coming into bloom earlier than others. They grow along the roadside and in the fields so are incredibly tenacious. They are worth having for their starry leaves alone. The nursery down the road has a good selections of these native beauties and I bought a couple of the drought resistant ground cover varieties last year.
I have also just bought some garden Lupines called Gallery Mix. They were delivered by Fedex as little potted seedlings after I ordered them online. I don’t think they are as tough as the wild ones from this area and suspect they have softer growth, but we’ll see. Their leaves are much larger than those in the wild.
Their color range extends from red through to pink, yellow, blue and white and the best ones are bi-colored. I have protected them from wild life with little cages while they are small because the first one I brought home was promptly eaten by some creature in the night.
Being a seed lover, I also planted some annual Russell Lupine seeds and the seedlings of these colorful lupines are just about ready to be transplanted. I tried growing them in Zimbabwe and managed to germinate them there but they never did anything thereafter so were rather disappointing. I believe they don’t like being transplanted so have grown them in cardboard seed trays which I can just plant straight into the garden bed. I think egg cartons would do just as well really. The only problem is that the cardboard really soaks up the water so you have to be more vigilant about watering the seedlings. I’m not sure how much space they’ll need but I’ll find space for them somewhere! I’ll post some photographs of them once they’re blooming. My neighbor has just told me that they won’t bloom here, it’s too cold for them, but we’ll see.
American Meadows and Burpee both have lupine seeds in stock right now so click on the links in the side bar to have a look at these exquisite flowers. Happy gardening and please don’t forget your sunscreen. There’s so much skin cancer about, you must protect your skin.
By the way, here is a link to a list of gopher resistant plants: http://www.groundcoversandgardening.com/gopher resistant plants. If you want to buy plants that deer probably won’t eat, look here.
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Great post.Really looking forward to read more. Want more.
Enjoyed every bit of your post. Keep writing.
“Hello there! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be ok. I’m definitely enjoying_ your blog and look forward to new posts.”
No, but you can see my facebook page, also called Ground Covers and Gardening.