KNAUTIA
Knautia macedonica and its array of buds, flowers and seedheads all visible on one plant.
When thinking about what plant to share with you, from the depths of my Christchurch winter, I felt like we needed someone uncomplicated cheer - and no garden creature for me is as free loving and happy as Knautia macedonica.
Also known as Macedonian scabious this clump-forming herbaceous perennial bears small crimson, pincushion-like flowers on long slim wiry stems. It has a whimsical delicacy with its lovely nature of weaving through its neighbours and its spear-shaped, deep green foliage forms a dome around its base. I regularly lift and divide my clumps in early spring but at maturity, they have a spread of around 45 cm with their highest blooms reaching up to 80 cm tall. Self seeding is minimal but I gratefully scoop the seedlings up to interplant around the front or mid of my beds.
Knautia is an early arriver in relation to summer flowering perennials and it hangs on for dear life into autumn, and in some places, winter. I tend to cut it back to its new growth when I do my late winter chop. It eagerly throws forward new buds as its flowers pass, and while deadheading certainly keeps it tidy as it charges forward, I do find, even with neglect, it will keep budding and flowering while the warmth is around.
I have planted it in all sorts of conditions from full sun to part shade, and it copes nicely with all. Once established it is tough, drought tolerant and a magnet for pollinators. Its bright little flowers visually punctuate dense planting, breaking it up and in my case, adding to the wild froth! I love it paired with gaura but equally as a partner to echinacea, sisyrinchium and Coreopsis verticillata ‘Moonbeam’.
Knautia weaving through gaura (Oenothera lindheimeri)
Dots of crimson knautia in my early summer garden show that it is a light accent rather than the start of the show.
Knautia and Alchemilla mollis
One of the earlier summer perennials.
