Rose Campion
Lychnis coronaria
also called lychnis coronaria
Individual plants give out after a few years, but it seeds itself along and the colony carries on regardless.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Silver and gray
- Flower color
- Pink
- Sunlight
- Full sun
- Feeding
- Rose & flower
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- June
- Mar–Jun Spring Growth
- Jun–Aug Flowering
- Aug–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 15.7 in
- In-row spacing
- 15.7 in
- Between rows
- 19.7 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Fine and fibrous, close to the surface
- Working depth
- 6–12 in
- Can reach
- 18 in down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 16–24 in across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 8 in of soil
The whole root system sits in the top hand-span of soil, so this is the first thing in the bed to feel a dry week and the last thing that should meet a fork. Hoe shallowly around it, and mulch instead of digging.
The habit is Rose Campion’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.
- Root & crown rot Crown rot where winter soil stays wet
- Seedlings turning up everywhere once conditions suit it
Lavender, Nepeta, Stachys, Verbascum
Flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com