Wallflower
Erysimum cheiri
A brassica in flower's clothing — keep it off ground that has recently grown cabbages.
- Type
- Flower · Grown as a biennial
- Botanical family
- Mixed / other
- Foliage color
- Green
- Flower color
- Orange
- Sunlight
- Give it full sun.
- Watering
- Little water, but the drainage has to be sharp.
- Feeding
- Feed sparingly, if at all.
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Flowering
- April
- Pruning
- A light trim once the flowers are over.
- Mar–Apr Spring Growth
- Apr–Jun Flowering
- Jun–Oct Growing
- Oct–Dec Leaf Fall
- Jan–Mar Leaf Fall
- Plant spacing
- 11.8 in
- In-row spacing
- 11.8 in
- Between rows
- 15 in
- Square-foot density
- Not suited to SFG
- Root system
- Fibrous
- Working depth
- 12–24 in
- Can reach
- 3 ft down where the soil allows
- Spread
- 12–18 in across, about 1–1.5× the width of the plant
- Shallowest pot
- 12 in of soil
A dense mass of roots through the topsoil with a few running deeper after water. Work the bed to a spade’s depth before planting and it will find everything it needs without much help.
The habit is Wallflower’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
- Big-eyed bug Geocoris spp.Hunts Flea beetle
A stubby 3 mm bug with enormous wrap-around eyes, working the soil surface and the low foliage for aphids, mites, thrips and insect eggs. It is the main natural check on chinch bugs in a lawn and it is killed outright by insecticide.
- Damsel bug NabidaeHunts Flea beetle
A slender, mantis-armed bug that grabs aphids, small caterpillars, and thrips in low crops and meadowy edges. Leave a strip of unmown grasses and flowers for it to overwinter in.
- Garden birds Passeriformes
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & Trichogramma
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Spiders AraneaeHunts Flea beetle
Webs, ambushes, and night patrols make spiders the garden’s steadiest generalist predators, taking whatever flies or crawls past. Mulch, ground cover, and undisturbed corners keep the population dense.
Tulips, Forget-me-nots, Aubrieta, Lavender
Green-leaved flowers, like this one.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com