PlantFiles: Giant Fleeceflower, White Fleece Flower, White Dragon
Persicaria polymorpha

This plant has grown very successfully in my zone 4 garden on the north side of my home in almost complete shade. It has grown larger but not moved from it's own clump. Very beautiful. I am planning on dividing the clump this fall and spreading it out along the whole wall. Flowers last for almost a month!

This plant is an awesome performer in my garden. I have it in the back of the garden in part sun/ part shade with a large evergreen as a backdrop. It grows to about 5 feet in height and about 5 feet in width. I have day lilies at the base of this plant but I must move them this year because I am unable to see them very well because the girth of this plant.

It's very fun to watch this plant take shape because I swear it grows at least 5 inches a day!

My mother has this in her zone 6a garden three miles from me, and it is a beauty! It behaves itself, hasn't propogated itself beyond the clump it's growing in, and is a wonderful backdrop plant planted against her retaining wall.

Bold landscape plant with a shrub-like habit - excellent for a back border. Wonderful textured leaves with giant fluffy white astilbe-like blooms in early summer. One of Wolfgang Oehme's favorite plants!

While this species of Persicaria is not the highly invasive Japanese Knotweed, it is related (see "Polygonum cuspidatum" in this database, previous scientific names of JP also include Polygonum sieboldii, Polygonum japonicum, Polygonum zuccharini Small, Pleuropterus zuccarinii, Polygonum reynoutria (in USA horticulture trade)).

Persicaria polymorpha is a clump-forming, apparently non-invasive cultivar that is highly ornamental, however, I've changed my opinion on Persicaria since I first obtained the plants a few years ago. I was surprised at how large and spread-out my Persicaria plants grew after the first year, to the point where it was a bit alarming. I suspect that they could regenerate very easliy from roots spreading, and since they are not a native American plant, and are related to a really invasive pest here in the Catskills (knotweed), I decided to eradicate the Persicaria from my gardens and not take any chances in being responsible for the spread of yet another invasive pest.

I have since replaced them with a beautiful white form of native butterly weed (Asclepias Tuberosa) that I got from a native plant nursery here in the Catskills. The white buterfly weed ( a white milkweed) has very nice looking foliage and blooms with large white flat flowers for a long period mid-summer, and looks great next to blue or purple native phlox as well. I highly reccommend the native butterfly weed.

This knotweed is highly invasive and has become a big pest along the trout streams in the Catskills. Be very careful where you plant it, because you will never get rid of it. It is pretty but extremely aggressive.