Common Name: sundrops
Type: Herbaceous perennial
Family: Onagraceae
Zone: 4 to 8
Height: 1.00 to 1.50 feet
Spread: 1.00 to 2.00 feet
Bloom Time: May to June
Bloom Description: Yellow
Sun: Full sun
Water: Dry to medium
Maintenance: Low
Suggested Use: Naturalize
Flower: Showy
Leaf: Colorful
Tolerate: Drought, Erosion, Dry Soil, Shallow-Rocky Soil
Culture
Easily grown in average to moderately fertile, dry to medium moisture, well-drained soils in full sun. Prefers good summer heat and dryish soils. Tolerates poor soils and light shade. If plant foliage depreciates in summer after flowering, stems may be cut back to the basal rosette. Slowly spreading rosettes.
Noteworthy Characteristics
Oenothera fruticosa, commonly called sundrops or southern sundrops, is an erect, day-flowering member of the evening primrose family. It is native to eastern North America. It typically grows 15-30” tall and produces terminal clusters of bright yellow four-petaled flowers in late spring on stems clad with lanceolate green leaves (1-3” long). Rosette leaves (to 1-4” long) are oblanceolate. Flowers are followed by distinctive club-shaped seed capsules. Flowers bloom during the day, hence the appropriate common name of sundrops. Each flower is short-lived, but flowers bloom in succession over a fairly long period of two months.
Genus name is unclear but may have come from the Greek words oinos and theras meaning wine-seeker in probable reference to an ancient use of the roots of genus plants in scenting wine.
Specific epithet means shrubby or bushy.
‘Fyrverkeri’ (also sold as ‘Fireworks’) is a more compact plant that grows to 18” tall. It features purple-brown flushed foliage, red stems, red flower buds and bright yellow flowers in May-June.
Problems
No serious insect or disease problems.
Uses
Borders, wild gardens, rock gardens, native plant areas or cottage gardens.