Plant guide: Erigeron karvinskianus
We adore the tiny Erigeron karvinskianus, also known as Mexican fleabane, with its profusion of long-blooming daisy-like flowers. It’s the perfect plant for growing from cracks in stone walls, tumbling out of the side of steps, or as groundcover in pots planted with shrubs.
There is something irresistibly cheerful about its flowers that never fails to put us in a good mood! Opening pure white, they turn pink over time, first the edges and finally the full flower, before morphing into a fluffy ball of seeds, similar to a miniature dandelion seedhead. The seeds can travel far, and germinate easily, so once you’ve got it in your garden, you’ll never have to plant one again.
If you’re after something to break up geometric lines of hard landscaping, that’s low maintenance (basically no maintenance!) with a painterly cottage-garden vibe, this is the plant for you…
Botanical name: Erigeron karvinskianus
Plant type: Perennial, this will grow back year after year.
Growing conditions: Erigeron can cope with a range of growing conditions, though it will grow best in full sun, in moist, well-drained soil.
How to grow / plant:
You can either grow these from seed, or plant small plants directly into position. It will grow from seed quickly, flowering within three months of germinating, so this is an easy way to cheaply grow plants. See our guide to sowing seed for more info. If buying a plant, remember that this grows quickly, so we’d recommend buying the smallest plants you can find, as they will quickly spread out and fill the space. Water well for the first few months once it is first planted in, while it gets established.
Care:
Once it is established, erigeron is a very low maintenance plant, which can cope with occasional drought, so shouldn’t need watering. If it has started to get a little bit lanky, you can cut any long stems back in the Autumn. It will self-seed freely, which is one of our favourite things about it, but if you see seedlings pop up anywhere unwanted, just pull them out.
Grow with:
Erigeron is one of those plants that looks great with almost anything else! It’s particularly good in a cottage garden style planting, coastal planting, or dry garden / drought tolerant planting and combines well with other similar plants.
We love to use it to soften hard landscaping, so we often plant it for tumbling down a stone wall, or growing out of the edge of steps.
Another great choice is to use erigeron as underplanting for shrubs in pots. It quickly forms a mat that covers the top of the shrub, which is great to stop weeds growing, and also looks wonderful. We have it growing under Hydrangea ‘Limelight’ in our garden and it looks fabulous. (See our guide how to grow plants in pots for more tips on container gardening.)
