Saxifrage
Saxifraga × arendsii
A tight cushion of a plant, undone by winter wet far more often than by cold.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Red
- Sunlight
- Partial shade, or sun that comes early in the day.
- Watering
- Water sparingly; sharp drainage matters more here than any watering can.
- Feeding
- It needs almost no feeding.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Trim the spent flowers off once blooming is over.
- Overwintering
- Cold is not the problem — keep the winter wet off it.
- Mar–Apr Spring Growth
- Apr–Jun Flowering
- Jun–Nov Growing
- Nov–Dec Dormancy
- Jan–Mar Dormancy
- Plant spacing
- 11.8 in
- In-row spacing
- 11.8 in
- Between rows
- 15 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
- 12–18 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 Saxifrage’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.
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Vine weevil
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 AnuraHunts Vine weevil
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 CarabidaeHunts Vine weevil
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 europaeusHunts Vine weevil
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.
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com