These beautiful native perennials appear in several colors, including this amazing blue. Easy to grow. They like Reno and if they like you they can bloom from June to September. Actually, it depends upon the species, but, these pure xeric plants can make your common sense garden very happy.
According to Andrea D. Wolfe, creator and director of The Penstemon Web Site at Ohio State University, "Gardeners in the American western regions are in Penstemon nirvana because the choice of native plants amenable to most garden situations is luxuriously large."
But purple, pink, white, red. From six packs, to four inch and gallon pots, Penstemons adapt very easily to transplanting. Rarely do they show any symptoms of shock. They prefer bright sun. They often reseed themselves within a couple years. Get them established with water twice a week, but once they're settled in, they take little water and that's about it.
Penstemons are perfect for rock gardens, especially if you need a small, beautiful flowering plant, and who doesn't? It will need about two square feet to flourish. They seem to enjoy growing next to rocks, perhaps for protection from desert wind where in the wild, seeds might collect in small pockets of calm air secured by the mass of stone. If nothing else, they look like they enjoy growing next to rocks. They look at home in a rock garden.
Like many plants, the Penstemon relies on insects for pollination. This is good news for those beloved characters of the living garden, our friends, the bees, the butterflies, and the hummingbirds. The more poison free zones we offer these beneficial garden visitors the better. There's no need to use poisons on native Penstemon. They do just fine.
