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Eupatorium ligustrinum

25 October 2010

This Mexican relation of the splendid coarse perennial Joe Pye weed or hemp agrimony comes with tenderness warnings. The R.H.S. Encyclopedia of Garden Plants says that 5°C (41°F) is as cold as it can take. Our plant, near head high on the south wall of the house, has survived half a dozen winters - including, of course, last winter when it must have been down to -5°C.

It is a reasonably handsome shrub all year round: with shiny oval evergreen leaves, starting to flower in late September and now (October 25th) at its peak, with a delicate mixture of pink and white that reminds me a little of a Kalmia, but in exquisite miniature. The flower-heads dry and remain in place for months.

Who, by the way, was Joe Pye, whose name is so firmly attached to the perennial E. purpureum? Apparently he was a Massachusetts Red Indian medicine man who successfully treated typhoid fever.

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