Plant Overview
This dazzling orange-flowered plant produces sprays of spicy-scented, vivid orange flowers in early spring. It will open its cheerful deep orange blooms from spring right through to early summer. Easy to grow and will combine well with other plants, often gently self-seeding where they can find a happy corner. A magnet for both bees and butterflies.
Makes a useful cut flower.
Height and spread: 50cm x 30cm
Received a Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit (1993).
Erysimum are fast growing and happy in any sunny spot, provided the soil isn't boggy. They tolerate very dry soil once they are established.
Common name(s): Perennial Wallflower, Siberian wallflower
Synonyms:
Cheiranthus × allionii hort.
Erysimum allionii
Myth and Legend
In the 12th century, Troubadours would wear a sprig of wallflower to signify that their love survive time and misfortune. It is said that this is as a result of seeing the plant growing on the ruins of fallen towers, the rather romantic image of beauty and fragrance amongst desolation.
In Palestine, the wallflower is known as the 'blood drops of Christ'. It was introduced to Britain some 300 years ago, although some sources claim that it was originally introduced by the Romans.
Dreaming of wallflowers is said to be a sign to those in love that their sweetheart will be true to them.
