Potentilla
Dasiphora fruticosa
Long-flowering and almost trouble-free — a third off the top each spring is the whole of the maintenance.
- Type
- Shrub · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green · Silver and gray
- Flower color
- Yellow
- Sunlight
- Full sun for the best flowering.
- Watering
- Drought-tolerant once established.
- Feeding
- Rarely needed — a light compost mulch in spring is plenty.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Pruning
- Take a third off in spring and cut out the old stems.
- Mar–Jun Bud Break
- Jun–Sep Flowering
- Sep–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 3 ft 3 in
- In-row spacing
- 3 ft 3 in
- Between rows
- 4 ft 1 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Woody and fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 5–6.5 ft across, about 1.5–2× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 20 in of soil
A shallow woody framework with the fine feeding roots in the leaf litter above it. Those feeders are mostly under the outer half of the canopy rather than against the stem, which is where water and feed should go.
The habit is Potentilla’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.
- Generally trouble-free No notable pest or disease problems when grown in the right conditions — one of the easy ones.
Lavender, Geraniums, Grasses
Shrubs, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com