What is it?
True blue flowers are hard to find in the garden, but this shrubby herbaceous perennial ground cover plant with one hell of a Latin name, Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, is covered in star-like blue blooms from mid- to late summer. It’s fairly drought-tolerant once established, doesn’t need staking and isn’t a pest magnet, either. Height and spread: 40cm x 30cm.
Plant it with?
Combines happily with panicums, fescues and other grasses, or with other late-summer bloomers such as crocosmia and schizostylis.
And where?
This is an easygoing plant that will cope with most soils, and sun or partial shade. Try planting it along a bank – hardy plumbago spreads via rhizomes, so it’s a good one for knitting together unstable soil. Use it to edge a larger border, or to make a dramatic strip along a narrow one by planting it en masse. Young specimens can also be roped into temporary autumn container plant arrangements.
Any drawbacks?
It dies back in winter, and may not be fully hardy in the coldest parts of the UK, so pick a sheltered spot. Prune back the dead stems in late winter, ready for the new foliage to emerge.
What else can it do?
The foliage turns rich red in autumn.
