Ligularia, a perennial plant, was added to the garden in May 2015. This plant has yellow daisy like flowers dark green leaves with a purple/reddish underneath.
It seems there are different varieties of ligularia. The plant came with the tag Ligularia Praewalskii on it but I don’t think that is the variety. Doing a search showed me it should probably have been Przewalskii, an easy typo. It was purchased from a gardener that has a plant sale each year that I frequent, selling mainly shade loving plants. The Przewalskii has tall spiky flower stems but this one had more daisy like blooms. Some research tells me it could be Dentate or Desdemona. I will continue to research it. If you have any ideas I’d love to hear from you.
I’ve planted it in the front shady garden but after checking it out in various places we visited last year I have a feeling it will have to be moved so it has a bigger location to grow in. It’s at the bottom of the photo below. I’ll be checking it once it starts growing this year and make a decision then. The photo was taken on August 20, 2015.
Ligularia belongs to the ragwort family. By August a flower stem started growing and it had a big bud on it.
As the outer leaves opened by mid to late August it revealed several flower heads.
I love the macro shot of the buds as they are opening.
The blooms fully appeared by the beginning of September.
This plant is frequently grown for the lovely foliage. This macro shot captures some rain drops on one of the leaves. It let me know when it needed watering as the leaves got a bit droopy.
The macro shot shows all the detail in these pretty flowers.
By mid to late September the blooms were fading and I left some on for seed heads. I’ve collected some seed and will be attempting to grow some new plants this year.
I’m hoping this plant survived the winter and will be showing some growth in a little while.
This isn’t one of my best photos but it was taken quickly as the swallowtail butterfly flits in the blink of an eye. But it did stay around the blooms for quite awhile, proving right away it has been a good addition to the garden.
Do you have this plant in your shady garden?
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Patty
Thank you for this post! There isn’t much info on the seeds that I could find till your posting. My tractor seat plant is new to me so just collecting seeds today in 9b zone coastal panhandle, FL. My seeds look similar as I have the smooth glossy leafed ligularia. I could not figure out if the dark or the fuzzy(mine has much more substance to it) part was the seed. What I don’t know is if it’s a hybrid plant and the seeds may be sterile. Will test and find out with the damp paper towel in a baggie method.
Crafty Gardener
Glad the post helped you. You are in a much warmer zone than me. Good luck testing the seeds, hope they sprout and you are able to get some new plants.