The name \u201cGeorg Arends\u201d will ring a bell with astute gardeners, even if it only sounds faintly familiar.\u00a0 Arends was a German nurseryman and plant breeder with an establishment in Ronsdorf-Wuppertal, an imposingly named town near Cologne.\u00a0 He lived and worked from 1863 to 1952, a long career, that left an impressive legacy.\u00a0 If you have ever planted a shade loving astilbe or false spirea in your garden, chances are it was a hybrid variety of Astilbe x arendsii developed by Arends. \u00a0Now that the equally shade-loving bergenias or pigsqueaks are fashionable, some people will almost certainly grow Arends\u2019 bergenias, including the pink-flowered \u2018Abendglocken\u2019 or \u2018Evening Bells\u2019.<\/p>\n
I have grown Arends\u2019 plants before, so it is very easy to take the plunge with an Arends hybrid that is new to my garden..\u00a0 The next time I take up my trowel, I will install Touran \u2018Neon Rose,\u2019 a moss saxifrage or Saxifraga x arendsii.\u00a0 Moss saxifrages are low-growing plants bred from several different saxifraga species, all of which are native to northern areas of the Northern Hemisphere.\u00a0 Breeders like Arends have a wealth of choice, because there are at least 440 different saxifraga species.\u00a0 As part of the larger Saxifragaceae family, moss saxifrages are closely related the ultra-popular tiarella and heuchera, not to mention astilbe and bergenia.\u00a0 All feature small to extremely small, five-petaled flowers, usually in shades of white, cream, pink, rose and near purple.<\/p>\n
\u2018Neon Rose\u2019 bears medium pink flowers on a spreading, evergreen plant that grows up to six inches tall and twelve inches wide at maturity.\u00a0 A healthy moss saxifrage, or \u201cmossie,\u201d \u00a0covers itself in these tiny, quarter inch blooms in early to mid spring.\u00a0 After the petals fade, the plants can be sheared back so that the small, mossy-looking leaves create a nice, weed-blocking ground cover. In this respect, they resemble another favorite of mine, moss phlox.<\/p>\n
I am always searching out good groundcovers.\u00a0 As much as I love mulch and praise its many virtues, the bags get heavy. Any plant that saves my back and covers bare earth effectively has a home in my garden.\u00a0 Attractive flowers are a definite bonus.\u00a0 I love big root geranium\u2014Geranium macrorrhizum–for this purpose and use it wherever I can.\u00a0 Its vigorous relative, erodium, or heron\u2019s bill, makes itself at home just about anywhere and spits seeds all over the place. Right now in my front garden, I can see the tiny lobed leaves making their first appearance. Various members of the thyme clan do the carpeting job in sunny spots. The list of ground cover possibilities expands every day as plant merchandisers exploit the market niche.\u00a0 I predict that moss saxifrage will be one of the stars of many garden center displays this spring.<\/p>\n
Moss saxifrages behave like their alpine relatives and fit nicely into rocky cracks and crevices.\u00a0 They are great when positioned so that their blooms spill over the sides of low stone walls.\u00a0 As you might expect, they also perform well in traditional rock gardens, but can thrive in regular beds, as long grit, sand or gravel is added to the soil at planting time.\u00a0 Position them at the edges of beds, so that they will not be overwhelmed by taller plants. Above all, saxifrages require excellent drainage.\u00a0 Heavy, unamended clay soil is a death sentence.\u00a0 Similar soil conditions are necessary if you decide to use the plants in large pots or alpine troughs.<\/p>\n
My new Touran \u2018Neon Rose\u2019 will thrive in full sun or very light shade and, with luck, the clump will expand over time so that I can divide it and spread the wealth.\u00a0 Some sources claim that moss saxifrages only live about five years.\u00a0 Division or self-seeding may take care of the longevity issue.\u00a0 In any event, I am not going to worry about it.<\/p>\n
Like so many plants these days, \u2018Neon Rose\u2019 is part of a series with a trademarked name.\u00a0 The Touran series also contains \u2018White\u2019 and \u2018Scarlet,\u2019 with flowers in those colors.\u00a0 \u2018White\u2019 actually features a bit of pink at the end of each petal tip. Moss saxifrage varieties cover a fairly narrow color range, limited to white and various pink and red shades.\u00a0 When I saw the cultivar name \u2018Purple Robe,\u2019 I was hoping for true purple, but the blooms are actually a nice shade of red.\u00a0 \u2018Cloth of Gold\u2019 is the most unusual of the \u201cmossies,\u201d because it bears double flowers in an interesting shade of white with yellow-green overtones.<\/p>\n
Spring can be so variable in many places that it is hard to pick plant partners for moss saxifrages.\u00a0 However, I think it is pretty safe to say that early blooming daffodils, especially the rock garden varieties, would work well; as would blue-flowered varieties of chionodoxa or glory of the snow.\u00a0 Columbines, especially those in white or blue, would make nice tall foils for mossies, but I have a feeling that the bloom times might not always match up.<\/p>\n
Moss saxifrages are not widely available in catalogs, but may become so.\u00a0 Look for them in local nurseries and garden centers this spring.\u00a0 If they are flowering, they will probably be towards the fronts of the display pallets.\u00a0 Otherwise, look for them in the ground cover section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The name \u201cGeorg Arends\u201d will ring a bell with astute gardeners, even if it only sounds faintly familiar.\u00a0 Arends was a German nurseryman and plant breeder with an establishment in Ronsdorf-Wuppertal, an imposingly named town near Cologne.\u00a0 He lived and worked from 1863 to 1952, a long career, that left an impressive legacy.\u00a0 If you … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2,3],"tags":[230,808,807,589,805,806,809],"class_list":["post-1047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-alpine-plants","tag-edging-plants","tag-georg-arends","tag-groundcovers","tag-moss-saxifrage","tag-saxifraga-x-arendsii","tag-touron-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1048,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions\/1048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}