A pretty plant that comes in its original reddish pink tone, a brighter pink, as well as in white (Centranthus ruber albus). It’s fairly heat and drought resistant with occasional deep watering.
It is supposed to bloom from May through August. In this hot Mediterranean garden it will bloom April through June and then again in September and October (with smaller flowers). There is a smaller variety called Centranthus lecoquii with a Filippy drought code of 5, but I haven’t tried it myself.
Centranthus works with most kinds of soils, whether gravelly and dry or heavy and wet, but it prefers poor and chalky soil as well as place in the sun or at least in the half-shade. It is suppsed to reseed itself but doesn’t become invasive – a truly pleasant perennial.
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