Waldsteinia
Waldsteinia ternata
An evergreen carpet for the dry shade under trees, where it spreads as far as you let it.
- Type
- Flower · Perennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Yellow
- Sunlight
- Partial to full shade, including the dry shade under established trees.
- Watering
- Water new plants through their first summer; after that it rarely asks.
- Feeding
- No feed needed; poor to average soil suits it.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- Nothing routine — just shear the edges back when it oversteps.
- Overwintering
- Evergreen and hardy; it asks nothing of you over winter.
- Mar–Apr Spring Growth
- Apr–Jun Flowering
- Jun–Dec Growing
- Dec–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
- Shallow roots, spreading on surface runners
- 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 roots themselves stay shallow and near the crown; the spreading is done above ground by runners that root wherever they touch. The colony walks outwards while the parent plants age out, so keep the young rooted runners and replace the old ones every few years.
The habit is Waldsteinia’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.
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com