Winter Heliotrope

Winter Heliotrope (Petasites) - P. fragrans is a rampant weed blooming in December and January, unless the weather is very severe. The flowers, deliciously fragrant and of a pale dingy lilac, are gathered in short panicles upon stems of 4 to 12 inches. It is unfit for garden culture, as it runs very much at the root and becomes a weed, and should be planted on rough banks and in hedgerows, as it is very useful for winter bouquets, and may carpet a small clump of shrubbery where it can be conveniently gathered. It is not a hardy plant, and is cut down by severe frost. S. Europe. Another species, P. vulgaris (Common Butterbur), is a native plant, 2 to 2 1/2 feet high, closely allied to the common Coltsfoot, but having great Rhubarb-like leaves. The flowers appear in spring before the leaves, and are a dull pinkish-purple. Exotic plants with less effective leaves than this have been used in gardens; but it should not be allowed to come nearer to the garden than the margin of some adjacent stream or moist bottom. An allied plant, P. japonica gigantea, has recently come to us from the Far East, where the great rounded leaves, as large as a small sunshade and used as such by Japanese children, rise on stout fleshy stems as high as a man. It makes a stately waterside plant, and coming from the island of Saghalien it should prove fully hardy in this country. Its flowers come in early spring, before the leaves. Division.

• Jasmine
• Garden Snakes
• Gardenia Plant Care
• Honeysuckle
• How to Build an Outdoor Fireplace

• Boxwood Shrub Pictures
• Tree Identification
• Identifying Garden Pests