Sunday, November 15, 2009

Tradescantia x andersoniana (Virginia Spiderwort)

There are about eight pots of this little plant in the upper greenhouses and I have been watching them for months.  The flower buds took forever to form and this is the first flower I've seen.  This plant is commonly called Virginia Spiderwort.  It is supposedly hardy from zone 3a to 9b but I have never seen it grown locally before.  I didn't even know the name until a few minutes before taking it's picture.  I'm not sure why it's staying in the greenhouse all winter but it may be for propagation reasons.

It does well in full sun or partial shade and requires moist but well drained soil.  It typically blooms in June but being in the greenhouse it probably blooms every six months or so.  I noticed that one of the tags shows a plant with white flowers and there are supposedly some available in purple as well.  The one that I managed to get a picture of is blue.  I quite like this plant and I'm excited to see the rest of the blooms open.  The feathery stamens give the flower a really delicate feel.

4 comments:

  1. These are definitely hardy. There are also varieties with yellow leaves which are nice enough with just the leaves in a shaded area but then you also add the blue or purple flowers on top and these can be some pretty impressive plants ('Sweet Kate' is a good example and pretty common variety). Not very well known to the general public in my experience though.

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  2. It's unfortunate that it's not well known. It's a very interesting plant. Thanks for the info.

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  3. I think it's mostly because they can be a little floppy so in a store, in a 1 gal pot... they're often not the most exciting things.

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  4. Fair enough. I've probably just overlooked them.

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