{"id":7763,"date":"2015-07-12T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-07-12T16:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=7763"},"modified":"2015-06-30T18:13:41","modified_gmt":"2015-06-30T22:13:41","slug":"let-gaura-flutter-in-your-garden-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2015\/07\/12\/let-gaura-flutter-in-your-garden-this-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Gaura Flutter In Your Garden This Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"White<\/a>

White flowering Gaura<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Dark<\/a>

Dark Pink Gaura at Biltmore Estates in Asheville, NC<\/p><\/div>\n

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What first catches your eye about perennial gaura (Gaura lindheimeri<\/i>) is its light airy white (or pink) flowers (USDA hardiness zones 5 -9). Orchid-like blossoms are perched atop long thin stems. A faint breeze makes flowers flutter like a cloud of small butterflies\u00a0above the\u00a0dark green foliage. Also called wandflower, this Texas native is exceptionally heat and drought tolerant.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let its delicate appearance fool you.\u00a0Many plant\u00a0shoppers may pass it by at garden centers in the spring. It blooms non-stop all three growing seasons. Gaura is easy to grow and very low maintenance. Use it to edge a perennial or annual flower bed or group 3 or more in a rock garden or\u00a0a container. Autumn foliage takes on a maroon tint.<\/p>\n

New white and pink blooming cultivars continue to arrive at local garden centers. Most (not all) cultivars grow 2 \u00bd to 4 feet high. Among the best:<\/p>\n

\u2018Whirling Butterflies\u2019 has loose sprays of white flowers, lightly pink tinged.<\/p>\n

\u2018Siskiyou Pink\u2019 is a smaller cultivar; spring flowers start out pale pink and darken later in the summer.<\/p>\n

‘Crimson Butterflies’ is a compact\u00a0cultivar with dark red-pink blooms.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ballerina Blush\u2019 (pale pink blooms) and \u2018Ballerina Rose\u2019 (rose pink) grow only 12 – 18 inches tall.<\/p>\n

Gaura does not always overwinter reliably. Good soil drainage is a must! Plants do not like soggy ground in winter. Gaura has a long taproot system, so is very drought tolerant. Its fertilizer needs are minimal.<\/p>\n

Gaura rarely is troubled by disease or insect problems; leaf spots and powdery mildew may pop up if summer weather is exceptionally wet or plants are over-irrigated.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              What first catches your eye about perennial gaura (Gaura lindheimeri) is its light airy white (or pink) flowers (USDA hardiness zones 5 -9). Orchid-like blossoms are perched atop long thin stems. A faint breeze makes flowers flutter like a cloud of small butterflies\u00a0above the\u00a0dark green foliage. Also called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,707,747,710,674,806,665,1223,627,625,843,1060,729,777,630,705,706,646,113,455],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7766,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7763\/revisions\/7766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}