From High Country Gardens in spring 2018.
Stachys coccinea 'Mountain Red' - Texas betony
From High Country Gardens in fall 2019
Added more between 2020 and 2023 but several did not take
Expectations:
Silver Carpet is a non flowering lambsear. The one thing I never liked about lambsear in the past has been the ungainly flower stalks. These don't have any.
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Red Texas betony looks a lot like a salvia. |
The red flowered Texas betony looks like a salvia, but with deeper red blooms and more upright form.
It can get big and sprawly. It can take dry soil after it is established and it likes shade.
Experiences:
Experiences:
I put four of the 'Silver Carpet' along the front curve of the potting bench garden. These have been stellar from the beginning. Lush and blue and beautifully formed, spilling over the front edge of the garden.
In the first year all four of these Silver Carpet fuzzy blue lambsears bulked up a lot, and by spring 2019 each clump was already big and lush.
I added the red flowered 'Mountain Red' stachys, or Texas betony, to the dining room window garden in 2019, tucked in between the fescue grasses. In 2020 I put two in the back of the potting bench curve where it is quite shady.
The red flowers of the Texas betony are a nice clear red.
Velvety, soft, and cool blue, they go nicely interspersed with golden Japanese forest grasses.
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| August 2020 |
But in 2020 one in the middle got yellow spotted leaves and declined terribly. One nearby also got the spotting but did not decline so much.
All summer the worst infected one looked awful -- apparently it was fungal damage from water on the leaves -- and yet the others were fine. All are in similar conditions for rain falling from the aspen above. I carefully hand water from underneath. The one just looked like rags.
Advice was to cut back the limp tattered leaves and let it regrow, but I didn't do that, until finally in October I clipped it all back, took it out. In 2021 a second one succumbed, but I transplanted it when the garden under the aspens was expanded and cut back all the foliage.
By 2023 they all looked good and I divided some of the spreading edges to plant more. By 2024 they looked great and I divided even and spread out clumps ringing the lower level of he flagstone patio.
By 2023 they all looked good and I divided some of the spreading edges to plant more. By 2024 they looked great and I divided even and spread out clumps ringing the lower level of he flagstone patio.
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| 2024 |
I added the red flowered 'Mountain Red' stachys, or Texas betony, to the dining room window garden in 2019, tucked in between the fescue grasses. In 2020 I put two in the back of the potting bench curve where it is quite shady.
A very different looking lambsear. It takes constant shade. In 2021 the one in the dining room window garden was blooming beautifully behind the transplanted Japanese maple. The two in the potting bench curve struggled and I took them out in 2023.
In 2023 I dug the strugglers from the potting bench curve and put one near the patio flagstones under the privet but I didn't like the sprawl as a single specimen plant, and took it out. This lambsear needs to be tucked in among things like it is in the dining room window garden, where it is spectacular.
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| 2024 |