Drought Tolerant and Beautiful: Whirling Butterfly Gaura
Do you like flowering perennials?
I do. I enjoy their soft texture, flowers, and the pollinators that come to enjoy their flowers.
Today, I’d like to share with you one of my favorite perennials that I have growing in my garden.
Gaura lindheimeri is a drought-tolerant perennial that produces small, delicate flowers that resemble butterflies floating in the air.
Available in white and pink colors, they are grown as a perennial or used as an annual in colder climates. This is one of the few plants that you can find growing in a desert garden and in more temperate climates such as the Midwest and Northeast.
This lovely perennial deserves to be seen more in the garden and I’d love to share more about gaura with you and why you’ll want to add it to your landscape in my latest Houzz article.
Great Design Plant: Gaura Lindheimeri
Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."
I love Gaura too, but it does sometimes become a pest for me as it reseeds readily.
Drought tolerant is the way to go, even in areas like here where we have plenty of water on the shores of Lake Mishigan. Using less or even no water is a most responsible way to garden – given what is happening in California and other places. JC
In my experience (with a pink gaura), it grows well here in Tennessee and thrives in the summer heat, but does not like our heavy clay or our wet winters.
Definitely a plant that appreciates sandy soil and good drainage, which I guess you have in abundance!
I've heard the white one is a bit tougher – which seems to be the case based on limited data (my neighbor's white gaura came back just fine this year, whereas both her pink ones are barely hanging on…)
Hi Aaron,
I also find that the white gaura is more hardy and attractive in my opinion, which is why that is the type growing in my own garden. On another note, believe it or not, our soils are clay like in our region of the desert, which always surprises people.
Best,
Noelle 'az plant lady'
Clay in the desert?! Color me surprised! :O
It's so lovely, why have I never tried to grow it here?
I would, Robin! It's lovely!