Gaura lindheimeri ‘Whirling Butterflies’
by Margaret Frosztega
With all the recent heat, it is great to see this Gaura in full bloom, looking happy. I first saw it in a National Trust garden, in a large pot with Echinacea and Euphorbia myrsinites. I bought one and it flowered beautifully in my hot garden in Surrey. I bought a cutting up to Yorkshire and it has done well here too, in my clay soil. I’ve not watered it all summer, so definitely a plant that is happy with wet, as last year, or dry. They flower for ages and this year I’ve found a couple of self seeds elsewhere in the border.
Gauras are North American plants, also known as Bee Blossom, and bees do visit the flowers. Gaura ‘Whirling Butterflies’ is just under a metre high and wide and flowers from early summer into autumn.
‘Whirling Butterflies’ has pink buds, four white petals and long racemes. I like it as the flowers progressively move up the thin stems, so they appear to bob around like butterflies. Difficult to photograph then!
They have been reclassified as Oenothera lindheimeri, but the internet is awash with it still as Gaura.
images courtesy of Margaret Frosztega