Common Name: sea lavender
Type: Herbaceous perennial
Family: Plumbaginaceae
Zone: 3 to 9
Height: 0.50 to 1.00 feet
Spread: 5.00 to 1.00 feet
Bloom Time: May to July
Bloom Description: Blue
Sun: Full sun
Water: Dry to medium
Maintenance: Low
Flower: Showy, Good Cut, Good Dried
Tolerate: Drought, Dry Soil, Shallow-Rocky Soil
Culture
Best grown in light, moderately dry, well-drained sandy loams in full sun to part shade. Best in cool summer climates. May struggle in the heat and humidity of a typical St. Louis summer. Plants grown in USDA Zones 7 and 8 prefer some afternoon shade. Plants are generally best left undisturbed once established.
Noteworthy Characteristics
Goniolimon incanum, commonly known as sea lavender, is a woody-based perennial that features a rosette of leaves (each leaf to 5” long) from which rise flower stems well above the foliage clump to as much as 18” tall bearing a summer bloom of tiny flowers in shades of lavender blue, pink or white. Flowers are contained in a large, branched, airy terminal head spreading to 20” wide. It is native from Turkey to Central Asia.
Genus name comes from the Greek gonia meaning an angle and limon meaning a meadow for the angled flowers and meadow habitat of some genus plants.
Specific epithet means hoary or very grey.
Species plants were once commonly called prairie statice.
‘Blue Diamond’ is a dwarf sea lavender cultivar which typically grows to only 10” tall. It features a rounded, cloud-like mass of tiny blue flowers on long, wiry, multi-branched, nearly leafless stems which rise from a sprawling basal rosette of leathery, oblong-elliptic leaves. Flowers bloom in summer.
Problems
Crown rot and root rot are occasional problems. Well-drained soils and good air circulation will minimize the onset potential for these diseases.
Uses
Rock gardens, border fronts or containers. Flowers are attractive in dried flower arrangements.