Gomphrena Gallery
Gomphrenas galore
You may have noticed we’ve developed a fondness for gomphrena, and why wouldn’t we? This plant has so much to offer—it’s a great low-maintenance, no-maintenance choice. It doesn’t want to be soggy wet, but aside from that gomphrena doesn’t ask for anything. There’s no deadheading.
Gumdrops of gomprena
Well, one of our display beds looked like a galaxy of gumdrops this year: we showcased eight different varieties of gomphrena, from small to large. A lot of breeding work has been done in the last five years, so this plant comes in a bunch of different colors—we have oranges now.
Orange gomphrenas are new to us
You’ll notice that we arranged this bed by height with the taller varieties in back and the shorter ones in front. That wild and woolly, meadowy-looking one in the back is ‘Fireworks’—we’ve talked about its design potential in Field Notes. The very small, tiny one in the front belongs to the Gnome series.
We have to say that these plants have been very well behaved, even the tiny ones down front. With smaller buttons—and a lot more of them—we were afraid they might act like unruly children. As it turned out, we were pleasantly surprised and these pixies became nice and full.
Red gomphrenas add interest
Looking around the bed you’ll see that these plants fall into two categories: tall gumdrops and squat gumdrops, adding two distinctive types of interest. On the far right are some plants that look like red leaf gomphrena—those are the full sun varieties. They can tolerate part sun but prefer more sun than shade.
‘Sugared Plum’
As far as the foliage goes, these plants are all pretty green—no variegation. There is one bicolor flower: ‘Sugared Plum’, with a white dusting of “sugar” on top of a plum color. This variety should sound familiar to you—we’ve discussed it before in Field Notes. The breeders are working on bicolors now—that’s the next generation for gomphrena.
Gracefully hold their shape
Now that we’ve had the opportunity to watch these flowers age we have to say they do it gracefully. Like strawflowers, they become dry and brittle but hold their shape so they remain delicate and pretty. Gomphrenas differ in that they take on a cream color as they go dormant—‘Silver Frost’ actually turns pale white. They look like wispy ghosts of their former selves.
Beautiful indoor displays
Now, a lot of people like to cut these flowers to use for indoor displays because they last a long time when dried. If a client or customer intends to do so, make sure they cut the blooms early on, when they’re newly formed, and hang them upside down in a well-ventilated area. When left to dry on the plant too long the flowers become overly fragile and shatter before they make it into an arrangement.
