Image - Wikimedia / Jerzy Opioła
Do you need a groundcover plant that produces lots of flowers in the spring? Then you can stop looking: the Cerastium tomentosum is ideal for you. It reaches only 20 centimeters in height, but during the most colorful season of the year its leaves are almost completely hidden by its white petals.
In addition, its easy cultivation and maintenance have made it so popular that today it is very easy to find it in gardens. Do you want it to be in yours too? Here is your file .
Origin and characteristics
Image - Wikimedia / Jerzy Opioła
The plant I'm going to tell you about is native to Europe. Its scientific name is Cerastium tomentosum, although it is popularly known as a silver basket, cerastio, or summer snow. It develops creeping stems up to 20 centimeters tall that are covered with grayish-green, lanceolate evergreen leaves.
It blooms from winter to spring. The flowers are shaped like a white star, almost completely covering the foliage.
What are their cares?
If you dare to have a copy of Cerastium tomentosum, we recommend that you provide the following care:
- Location: it must be outside, in full sun.
- Earth:
- Pot: it can be with universal cultivation substrate, mixed or not with 30% perlite.
- Garden: grows in calcareous soils, with good drainage.
- Irrigation: water 3-4 times a week during the hottest time of the year, and every 5-6 days the rest.
- Subscriber: from early spring to late summer can be paid with ecological fertilizers every 15 or 20 days.
- Multiplication: by seeds in spring.
- Planting or transplanting time: in spring. If grown in a pot, transplant every 2 or 3 years.
- Pruning: it is advisable to trim the stems in late summer / early autumn to achieve the carpet effect that you like so much about this plant.
- Rusticity: withstands cold and frost up to -5ºC.
What did you think of the Cerastium tomentosum?