Lori's Garden
Artemisia ludoviciana 'silver queen'
Genus: Artemisia.
Species: Artemisia ludoviciana.
I wanted a plant for moonlight. I wanted something that would contrast the green in my garden at night...Also something that was native to N.A. and hardy as I'm too busy to coddle. Sometimes called Western Mugwort and is native mostly to the American mid and northwest. It has naturalized in the east, tolerates dryness and some shade, stoloniferous, loose clumping. leaves silver green, lanceolate, produces flowers of soft butter yellow in July.. Needs to be disturbed every couple of years...seems to rejeuvenate it. The root system is tenacious, so if it escapes your preferred site and seems to want to roam use your spade and ring the plant about six inches from the outer edge of the clump; just push your spade down into the soil to sever the escapees from the clump.. this gives it a set back without killing it...then pull any of the rhizomes that send up shoots beyond the cut. start another clump with the shoots you've pulled.or destroy them. I have composted the whole plant but it is very hardy and tried to colonize my compost area. As previously mentioned it looks lovely in moonlight.
