Chamaebatiaria millefoloium, also called Desert Sweet
From High Country Gardens in spring 2020
From High Country Gardens in spring 2020
Expectations:
Fernbush is supposed to be hard to get going and it takes a long time to establish. It needs water, but then should be fine in dry, lean soil after it matures. It gets to about 4 feet tall and 4 - 5 feet wide, mounded. The flowers are pretty and come out in summer.
A beautiful, big, billowy shrub that grows in poor, dry soils. It is supposed to be fragrant too.
Here's what it looks like in winter -- it holds its leaves and is considered "semi evergreen" but it's really a brown twiggy thing. Nice shape, though, and a screen in winter for the front by the driveway.
Here's a write up that describes it:
Widespread across the Western states, this ornamental native shrub has a wonderful feel in the landscape. It has a wide, almost billowy mounding shape, covered in a soft-looking cloak of olive-green foliage.
In midsummer, fernbush lights up with a showy display of white, lilaclike flowers that many species of native bees and butterflies use as a nectar source. The distinctive leaves are finely dissected and ferny in appearance, and the upright chocolate-brown seed heads are ornamental, especially when capped with a bit of winter snow.
Fernbush grows at lower elevations with supplemental irrigation as well as in mid- to high-elevation areas.
Experiences:
Planted in the front yard, offset in front of the cholla and the Honeycomb butterfly bush.
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| In August 2023 after blooming. |
I'm not sure about the soil there, it was amended when I had the Blonde Ambition grasses in there, and other than that it is hard caliche. The combination made for some heavy stuff.
Originally I wanted to put this out in the common area near the end of our driveway, but because it is slow to start, I put it in a pot at first to grow on before deciding to put it in the front yard.
Originally I wanted to put this out in the common area near the end of our driveway, but because it is slow to start, I put it in a pot at first to grow on before deciding to put it in the front yard.
I have a second one in a pot waiting grow and be planted out in the field.
It blooms in July and the flowers are pretty. It started to fill out and put on size in 2023 and continued to bulk up a bit in 2024.