Spacing & sowing

Plant spacing

23.6 in

In-row spacing

23.6 in

Between rows

2 ft 6 in

Square-foot density

Not suited to SFG

Growing

Type

Flower · Perennial

Botanical family

Mixed / other

Sunlight

Happy anywhere from deep shade to full sun.

Watering

Rides out dry spells once its roots are down.

Feeding

Nothing to feed; it manages on what the soil already holds.

Frost tolerant

Yes

Flowering

April

Pruning

Shear it back in spring to hold it inside its bounds.

Through the year

• Mar–Apr Spring Growth
• Apr–Jul Flowering
• Jul–Dec Growing
• Dec–Dec Leaf Fall
• Jan–Mar Leaf Fall

Companions

Hostas, Ferns, Hellebores, Snowdrops

Pests & problems

• Vine weevil Vine weevil, which favors the shadier corners
• Rust Rust — small orange pustules scattered over the leaves
• Runs beyond the border and into the lawn if left alone

Garden allies

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 Anura
  Hunts 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 Carabidae
  Hunts 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.

  Plant nearby LavenderMintThyme
• Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeus
  Hunts 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.