Lychnis coronaria

When someone mentions a plant that I highly regard, I have to add my
praise. I can validate Kurt Mize's observations about Lychnis coronaria
growing well in dry shade (a challenging location for many
plants/gardeners) and also growing well under trees. The plant — what I
call a "wonderful weed" — has many other qualities:
• Hardiness: It is very hardy in our climate of long, hot dry seasons
and wet, wet wet seasons. It's tuberous roots enable it to go weeks
without irrigation. It is very cold hardy. Also, I don't think I've seen
any insect eat the foliage.
• Deer resistence. It's on many deer resistent lists. Not sure what deer
don't like about it.
• Re-seeds readily, but is easly dug up, if not in the right location. I
yank them out of the ground (loose, rich soil) by hand. It's important
to note that L. coronaria is considered by many a biennial or
short-lived perennial. If seedlings begin growing immediately after a
mother plant drops its seed in late summer, it probably will bloom the
next summer. If plants germinate in spring, they won't bloom much or at
all until the next summer. The mature plant, a tidy clump about 8-12
inches in width, may bloom again the next summer, but will probably
exhaust itself and die after that.
• Flower are a butterfly magnet. In my garden, which contains many
butterfly favorites, L. coronaria is the favorite of tiger swallowtails
• Color: The deep megenta-colored flowers (round, 1-inch in diameter)
are very striking against the silver-gray foliage. By the way, it blooms
here in early summer and again (sparsely) in late fall, if deadheaded
immediately after first bloom. Two blooms is another nice quality.
• Grows well in heavy clay soil, as well as rich, fertile soil.

Some design ideas:
• Mass plantings are the most effective way to grow this plant.
Minimally, 6-8 plants grown closely together. What attracted me to L.
coronaria was seeing a large, naturalized colony of plants in a vacant
lot. Since they are easy to transplant any time of year, it's easy to
arrange them the way you want. This is a good plant to quickly fill up a
new border that has just a few other plants, or to put in other bare
spots in the garden. Because it's easy to remove later and doesn't live
long, you don't have to worry about getting rid of it when you want to
put in other plants. It is useful to plant it in a border or other large
area with young shrubs that will take a few years to fill in. I've got
Lychnis coronaria in a "gray-green" border between Cercis occidentalis
(western redbud), Salvia apiana (white sage) and Perovskia (Russian
Sage). Lychnis coronaria blends in beautifully as a
groundcover/underplanting. When the shrubs get bigger and fill in, I
won't need Lychnis coronaria there any more.
• This is a great plant for "moon gardens," or gardens with gray or
silver as the dominant color motif.

Paul Harrar
Nevada City, CA
Sunset Zone 7
2,700 feet
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