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.