Parthenium integrifolium

A white-flowering prairie plant that can take dry soil

The violent earth of Scarlett O’Hara ’s darling Tara has nothing on my Virginia cadaver . Along the private road , on a naked as a jaybird , sun - baked red cant , flourishing clumps of wild quinine ( Parthenium integrifolium ) propose shining foliage and long - live on white flowers throughout the season . plant life flower beautifully in spite of searing heat and months of drought . At the end of a foresighted , dry summer , the foliage looks as refreshful as a May morning . penalize conditions are not requisite for growing wild quinine , however . This attractive member of the Aster family ( Asteraceae ) is aboriginal to moist prairie , low meadows , and undefended woods from Massachusetts and Minnesota , to the south to Georgia and Arkansas , and it thrives in zone 4 to 8 . For best increase , I recommend giving plants moist , deep , rich dirt in full Lord’s Day or light shade . The fleshy taproot impart drouth - margin . Established clumps have lustrous , toothed , egg - shape basal leaves up to 12 inches long . A 12 or more 1 - to-4 - foot leafy halt crowned with flat clusters of small knobby whitened flowers rise from the clump in mid to former summertime .

raving mad quinine is a secure substitute for common milfoil ( Achilleaspp . and cvs . , Zones 4–8 ) in dampish dirt . Use it as a specimen or as a filler in the midsection of the border with bluff - textured plants such as rose mallow ( Hibiscus moscheutosand cvs . , Zones 5–10 ) and coneflower ( Echinacea purpurea , Zones 3–9 ) . In meadow and prairie garden , conflate wild quinine with purple prairie trefoil ( Petalostemum purpureum , Zones 3–8 ) , asters ( Asterspp . and cvs . , Zones 5–8 ) , goldenrods ( Solidagospp . and cvs . , Zones 5–9 ) , and ornamental grasses . The charcoal - gray seed heads are attractive throughout the winter in the garden or in dried arrangements .

To propagate , seed seeds in wintertime or spring after kick in them four to six weeks of cold , moist stipulation . Seedlings modernize lento the first year while they establish their tap root . works reach blooming size in two to three years . Wild quinine can also be propagated from stem cuttings taken in former June . This bad plant life deserves a property in every garden , schematic or raging .

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