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No picture is available
at this time.
Sulfur buckwheat is available in 4-inch pot size
for
$5.95 each.
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This California native subshrub is highly variable
with many botanical varieties. What they have in common is ball-like clusters of flowers
of a bright sulfur yellow that fades to a softer orange-yellow as the seeds form. The
flowers bloom over a long period of time starting just as the heat really turns on in
June, and continuing through the hot months.
The plants we
have are propagated from plants grown from seed collected along the Sacramento River in
Redding, California. It is a larger type than some varieties of E. umbellatum, the shrubs
themselves reaching perhaps 18 inches tall, and the flowers on fairly long stalks another
foot or so above the leaves. The shrubs gradually widen to cover an area 3 or 4 ft.
across. They can be cut back hard and will resprout, but this should be done in late
winter just before the main flush of new growth.
The flowers dry beautifully and keep their bright color if merely
cut and hung to dry, and this selection has stems long enough to be useful in
arrangements.
The leaves of the Sulfur Buckwheat are evergreen, but get a little sparse and tinged with
purple in the dead of winter.
Sulfur Buckwheat is one of only a few attractive plants that will
grow and thrive in our climate with absolutely no supplemental water. It survives in some
of the roughest rocky sites in full Valley sun, and blooms in the hot season. With some
water, it is lusher, blooms more and grows faster. We find it thrives with irrigation
every two to three weeks in summer in our gravelly red clay soil.
I am not sure of the ultimate cold hardiness of this variety of
Eriogonum. Certainly 15F did not phase it, and there are closely related varieties in the
same species that grow on the flanks of Mt. Shasta at 5000+ ft elevation. I'm fairly
certain it would survive to at least 0F.
For ultimate drought tolerance and low-maintenance along with showy
flowers, it is hard to beat this plant.
Catalog description by Gary Matson
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