Ligularia
Ligularia dentata
Broad, dark leaves for damp shade — it wilts dramatically in afternoon sun, though the drama is only cosmetic.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Orange
- Sunlight
- Partial to full shade, and afternoon shade is not optional.
- Watering
- Keep it consistently moist — never let the soil dry out.
- Feeding
- A spring mulch of well-rotted manure or compost does the feeding.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- July
- Pruning
- Take off spent flower stems, then cut the foliage to the ground in late autumn.
- Overwintering
- Fully hardy; mulch over the crown once it has been cut back.
- Mar–Jul Spring Growth
- Jul–Sep Flowering
- Sep–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 2 ft 6 in
- In-row spacing
- 2 ft 6 in
- Between rows
- 3 ft 1 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Clumping rhizomes
- Working depth
- 6–16 in
- Can reach
- 24 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 2.5–3.5 ft across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 10 in of soil
The clump widens a little each year from a shallow rhizome that likes to sit at or just under the surface. When the middle goes bare and woody, lift the whole thing, keep the young outer pieces and throw the centre away.
It wilts theatrically the moment the soil dries and recovers by evening, which is alarming and usually survivable. Plant it in ground that stays damp and the performance stops.
The habit is Ligularia’s own; the figures are what that habit usually comes to at this size, not a measurement of this species. Roots follow the soil either way: a compacted pan, a high water table or heavy clay stops them well short of any of it, and deep open ground lets them go further.
- Vine weevil Vine weevil larvae at work on the roots
- Slugs & snails Slugs and snails, the worst of its troubles on young leaves
- Leaves wilting in sun or wind, which looks alarming but does no lasting harm
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Frogs & toads Anura
A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.
- Ground beetle Carabidae
Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.
- Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus
A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.
- Centipedes ChilopodaHunts Slugs & snails
Flat, fast, one pair of legs to a segment — and a predator, unlike the slow round millipede it is constantly confused with. It hunts slugs, cutworms, springtails and woodlice by night under mulch and stones. Learn the difference and leave this one alone.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Slugs & snails
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
- Salamanders & newts CaudataHunts Slugs & snails
Damp-loving hunters of slugs, worms, woodlice and beetle larvae that spend the day under a log or a stone and work the beds at night. Companions to the toads: they want the same damp shade, the same log pile, and the same absence of slug pellets.
- Snakes & lizards Colubridae & PhrynosomatidaeHunts Slugs & snails
A garter snake works the beds for slugs and voles and a fence lizard clears grasshoppers off a sunny wall. Almost every snake a gardener meets is harmless and useful; give them a log pile, a warm flat stone and a bit of cover and they stay.
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com