Common Name: cinquefoil
Type: Herbaceous perennial
Family: Rosaceae
Zone: 5 to 8
Height: 0.75 to 1.00 feet
Spread: 1.00 to 1.50 feet
Bloom Time: May to August
Bloom Description: Carmine rose with dark red center
Sun: Full sun to part shade
Water: Medium
Maintenance: Low
Flower: Showy
Tolerate: Deer, Drought
Culture
Easily grown in average, medium, well-drained soils in full sun to part shade. Prefers light, well-drained, sandy loams. Plants come respectably true from seed.
Noteworthy Characteristics
Potentilla nepalensis is native to the Himalayas in Nepal. It is a clump-forming perennial that typically grows to 15-18” tall and to 24” wide. Branching, wiry stems clad with palmate, compound, strawberry-like leaves form a sprawling foliage mound that is covered with open cup-shaped purplish-red flowers in summer. It features single flowers (1” diameter) of carmine rose with dark red centers, each flower having five separated and evenly-spaced, heart-shaped petals. Blooms in late spring through much of the summer. Each palmate leaf has five hairy, coarsely toothed, obovate to oblanceolate leaflets. Cinquefoil means five-leaved in reference to the foliage.
Genus name from Latin potens meaning powerful is in reference to the reputed medicinal properties of the plant.
Specific epithet means of Nepal.
‘Ron McBeath’ is a compact cultivar that grows to only 12” tall. Cultivar name honors Ron McBeath, a former assistant curator of plants at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Problems
No serious insect or disease problems.
Uses
Cottage gardens, rock gardens or border fronts.