Aurinia

By: John Degroot

May 5 2012

Aurinia - Garden Clippings for May 5, 2012

Bright as bright could be.  These flowers are so bright that the plant almost offensively dominates the garden.  When Basket of Gold blooms, all other plants in the garden take a back seat.

Basket of Gold (Aurinia saxatilis) is one of the earliest perennials to show colour.  It normally begins blooming in early to mid-May, and this year with our mild weather they are slightly ahead of schedule.  Flowers are sulphur yellow and grow in clumps.  They look great at the front edge of a perennial border, tumbling over rocks, and cascading over a low wall.

Even when not flowering, Basket of Gold remains a tidy perennial plant.  Once the flowers are finished, they can be sheared off and the plant becomes an attractive mound of tiny grey-green leaves.

Basket of Gold performs best when in a sunny, hot and dry garden.  It likes average soil that drains well.  If soil is too rich, the plant gets leggy.  Please don’t plant Basket of Gold in soil that remains consistently wet, because sections of it may rot.  This year Basket of Gold is flowering better than ever because we have had an unusually dry spring.

Basket of Gold ranges in height from 6 to 12 inches high, with the mound spreading to about 18inches.  Several varieties exist, with only slight differences in colour and heights.

Gold Dust Alyssum or simply Gold Alyssum are other names given to Basket of Gold and that’s in spite of the fact that Basket of Gold is not a member of the Alyssum family.

To add to the confusion in names, Mountain Alyssum and Alpine Alyssum are two low growing plants that are barely distinguishable from Basket of Gold.   Mountain Alyssum has a growth habit almost identical to Basket of Gold.  It likes sunny and hot growing conditions, Foliage is silvery green.  Alpine Alyssum (Alyssum Serpyllifolium) is similar but lower growing.  There exists enough confusion over these plants that some perennial growers believe they are one and the same plant.

If yellow is not your colour, Rock cress (Aubretia) has a similar growth habit with blooms in red, purple or pink.  Candytuft (Iberis) is another option with pure white, long lasting blooms.