This is a photo of the new gaura I bought at---SURPRISE-- Walmart. I could hardly believe it for we rarely ever get much in this garden shop that I have any interest in, especially a, I guess, fairly new hybrid. Even better, gaura is a Texas native, so I am hoping this will do well here for a long time. Another really big plus is the size--this is a gallon and a half, and the price was really reasonable. I checked the ATP Plant database and this plant is listed, but I see genus is also Oenothera, and I always used Gaura. I am going to post this pic to the data base. One other thing I learned, and this is there are a number of gaura hybrids I have never heard of and never seen. At one time, I did have Whirling Butterflies but it lasted only a few years, and I am sure it died because of too wet soil. This one is planted, hopefully, in a much better spot with faster drainage.

Very pretty, hope it does well for you. I have never had much luck with Gaura, never over winters and will not bloom for me. I think washingto may be to wet and summer not warm enough. Good find. Keep us posted on how it does.

Guara never ever over winters for me. But it does wonderfully during the season for me.

Swirling Butterflies did too well here and self-seeded in a huge area. I had no choice but to remove it. Some seeds grew even a year or two later.

Our Whirling Butterflies never did re-seed, probably because it wasn't happy with us. I loved the look of it and hope this one will last a long time. I will be looking for seedlings since it evidently can re-seed, something I didn't know.

Hi Avedon, I got three of these last spring, and they are really prolific bloomers. Mine are about three feet tall. I took this so you can see how big they can get.

After looking at Bonnie's beautiful picture, I almost don't want to post this one, but here is our Belleza Dark Pink gaura and we are very happy with it. So are a lot of pollinators--I laugh to see the big bumblebees trying to get the nectar. They really bend down the stems--I call it Bumblebee bungee jumping.

We did very well with this planted fresh in Sept. They were hard cases and bounced back with vigor. They bloomed all the way into December surviving several frosts until extended days in the teens. Do I cut back the above ground growth?

Hello, UrbanWild, you did a good thing, caused me to look up pruning for this plant. Mostly what I am seeing is to cut it back by half in early spring, so for us that means about the end of March, unless we have a cold snap, which can happen. This will be the first time for us to prune this plant, so it is going to be a learning experience. Glad to hear that your guara did so well for you, we really like ours, definitely great for pollinators.

So...we had 3 days in the single digits in late Jan or Feb. Both gaura varieties we have looked like the tops had died. So, I cut them to the ground. Not sure if all are alive, but we have a number with small sprouts as of a day or two ago. Looks promising.

Urbanwild, guess what? Ours died to the ground, too. It's been cut back and new growth is coming, hope it can make it back to what it was a year ago.

I got this plant a couple years ago and it has struggled to establish but finally came up vigorously this spring. A couple weeks ago, it just had 6 branches with a single bud cluster on each tip. I pinched those off and it has gone into explosion mode. I can't wait to see the show from this soon!

Appleblossom Grass (Oenothera lindheimeri Belleza™ Dark Pink)


Are any of the previously discussed plants still alive?

Ours totally died out years ago, and I think it's safe to say it received too much water. We decided to not buy a replacement, because we couldn't insure the drainage needed to keep it from rotting away.

Interesting, thank you. The one thing I have an overabundance of is drainage. Our soil dries nearly instantly.

I bought 3 a few days ago and should get them planted this afternoon. I've read they are easy enough to start from seed so given we are a good ways north of preferred range, I may start planting seeds and testing them as annuals. I did read they regularly die out as tender perennials.