This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Cardamine raphanifolia info needed
matt stobbs
Posts: 7
in Plants
I am looking for some leafy evergreen marginal plants for my pond,like the look of cardamine raphanifolia . Can anyone tell me if this is actually evergreen?I have heard it said that it disappears when it gets hot in summer
Any help would be great thanks
0
Posts
Hi matt
Cuckoo-flower aka Lady Smock aka Cardamine raphanifolia used to grow wild in our damp meadow - it's related to the brassicas and in my experience it's a short-lived perennial, flowering in late spring and dying down each year in mid-summer (that is, flowering at the time the cuckoo calls and then when the cuckoo heads back to Africa the plant stops flowering and dies down). Certainly not evergreen.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The Cardamine of our childhood before everything got drained and cleaned up is Cardamine pratensis.
I'm not familiar with the one mentioned but have grown several cardamine, none evergreen.
In the sticks near Peterborough
Whoops yes Nut - pratensis
But googling reveals that raphanifolia is a close relative (also known as Cuckoo Flower) http://www.ukwildflowers.com/Web_pages/cardamine_raphanifolia_greater_cuckoo_flower_pyrenees.htm - very similar and not evergreen.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Matt, I'd never heard of this one till you mentioned it. Now it's cropped up again. I was reading a Dan Hinckley book last night, he says it's evergreen.
In the sticks near Peterborough
thanks for your kind responses
Got plenty of the wild variety round here in the water meadows, definitely not evergreen
It says here http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Cardamine+raphanifolia that it dies down in the summer
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Photo evidence of the wild stuff mid-summer!!!!
If that's the purple stuff on the right it may be way too big for my pond anyway!
It is indeed, though it's definitely pink. It's exceedingly enthusiastic