PlantFiles: Mountain Cornflower, Mountain Bluet, Perennial Cornflower
Centaurea montana 'Amethyst in Snow'

I'm amending my original post and changing from a 'Positive' to a 'Neutral'. After it's initial beautiful show most of these plants have developed what I believe to be mildew problems.. I'm not 100% sure on this. This lower leaves are actually browning out as if all the energy in the plant is leaving them to produce flowers. Several have become plain unsightly. I'm cutting them back to regenerate growth, but until then the jury is out!

By the way, ignore what I said about controlling these plants. I also have several Mountain Bluet that I moved last fall. No matter how much I dig I keep getting start-ups from the orginal plants roots.

My original comments...

"I purchased one of these is 2006. In early 2007 I was able to take some rooted cuttings and transplant them between my Russian Sage. After taking the cuttings the parent plant experienced 'explosive' growth. It resembled a groudcover, in that it filled a 2' by 2' area. I decided to dig it up and split it into 13 plants by the the end of spring.

The 50' long and very narrow bed I placed it in became known as my 'Groundcover bed'. It includes the aforementioned Russian Sage, as well as Golden Teardrop sedum, Dead Nettle, Creeping Jenny and Silver Brocade (the low mat forming variety, not the more upright Dusty Miller)... all battling it out. I started all from clippings of other plants last year and they are filling in very nicely so far in 2009. With new spring bulbs popping up between it should make for a beautiful sight in about a month.

Back to the Amethyst-in-snow... it does have sprawling habit as it comes up from the roots. They are easily dug up and totally controllable. The plants do tend to get leggy after their blooms expire, however like other cornflowers, they can be cut back and fill in quite quickly. I suggest deadheading the spent blooms, as this plant will flower through out the growing season."

I also liked the looks of this plant; both the flower and growing habit, so I purchased it through mail order from a comany i had bought from before. It has done very well in my garden, and will seed out around the area. It is not invasive; thus the little new plants are welcomed. I have a blue one and the white one. I have grown it in full sun as well as part shade. We get very cold winters here; but it winters well in the garden.

I loved the look of the plant when a friend purchased one for each of us from a Botanic Garden sale; they were in full bloom (see my pictures I posted). However in our area they suffered greatly. Not sure if it was the heat of our Texas summers. Mine was in partial shade and lasted a bit longer than hers.