Plumbago – A Great Ground Cover

Ceratostigma plumbaginoides by jacki-dee

Are you looking for a ground cover for  difficult-to-grow spots, like on slopes, or a pretty plant for your alpine garden or just a pretty but undemanding flower for your garden? Look no further than hardy plumbago- Ceratostigma plumbaginoides. 

This perennial ground cover is hardy from zone 5 to  zone 9 blooms from July to Sept. It is deer resistant. It likes sun but seems to do well in shady spots. One website said it will grow in sun, partial sun, partial shade, shade.  Plumbago will tolerate drought and will grow in dry to moist soils.  It does prefers well-drained soil with a neutral pH. It does not like heavy, wet soils. It is the kind of cover that doesn’t seem to let weeds grow through but you can plant it over bulbs like daffodils which will grow through the plumbago plant and bloom earlier in the season and be dead by the time the Plumbago emerges. And did I say that its leaves turn a copper color in the fall?

Ceratostigma plumbaginoides (Pflanze) by andreasbalzer

Plumbago is also called leadwort. The genus name is derived from the Latin name for lead, plumbum, I guess because lead gives off a blue flame and plumbago has a stunning blue flower. But it may also have gotten its name because there are accounts of plumbago being a folk-remedy for lead poisoning. Please don’t try it for that.