Brilliant! Dazzling! Bright, vivid, and sparkling! With so much gloom and doom in the news, what we gardeners need right now is color, and the more intense, the better. It’s still snowing outside (yes, today, on the first day of spring), but that won’t stop me from enjoying the flowers of summer inside.
Last week I wrote about how birds get their colors—and that had me thinking about what birds do with all those colors.
Covering the ground with a solid mass of eye-searing fuchsia-purple flowers, Hardy Ice Plant (Delosperma cooperi) demands a second look. The succulent green leaves glimmer in the sun, giving the plant its common name, while the flowers have glistening thin petals surrounding a yellow center.
Waves of bloom carpet the foliage from late spring until late summer. The show even continues in winter, when plants turn a deep burgundy-red. Other species of Delosperma, with yellow or salmon-pink flowers, are also now available. Some have earned PlantSelect® honors.
Mountain Plover 