Product Description
Tradescantia 'Zwanenburg Blue'
Common Name: Spiderwort.
Zone: (3) 4 to 9.
Full sun to full shade. Soil conditions should be moist in full sun. Plants will have nicer foliage, though perhaps fewer flowers, in partial to full shade.
Height: 18 to 24 inches tall, spread 24 to 36 inches.
Moderate growth, Herbaceous clump-forming perennial.
Triangular, blue-violet blossoms with sulfur-yellow stamens. Each 1 to 2 inch wide, 3-petaled flower only lasts for one day, but the plants have lots of buds, extending the bloom time up to eight weeks. The flowers are self-cleaning, so deadheading is not necessary.
Tradescantia is adaptable to many types of soil as long as it is moist and well-drained; but prefer moist, acidic, humus soils. To encourage new growth and a second round of bloom, after flowering declines, cut plants all the way back.
This clump-forming perennial is easy to divide in either the spring or in early fall. Seedlings may sprout around the parent plant, but they are easily lifted and moved. Plant Tradscantia in a naturalized area, rock gardens, open woodland gardens, or by a pond or stream.
When stems of spiderworts are cut, a viscous stem secretion is released which becomes thread-like and silky upon hardening (like a spider's web), hence the common name.
Attributes: Border plants, Containers, Mass Planting. Attracts butterflies.