Hi everybody. I am a spare-time gardener. Need to fill out small spaces with small flowers (maybe less than 1 cm tall, or 0.4 inch), vividly colored in dark blue, light blue, red, yellow and white. Can anybody offer advice in re. to what would be the best species to consider? Thank you George
Persian Speedwell? You're going to be severely limited by the height requirement. Even Creeping Thyme or phlox would be too tall. http://visualsunlimited.photoshelter.com/image/I0000kRZFWOi0OGk
I would be interested to know why you need flowers of less than 1cm? Even creeping Thymes will get above that!
The green-and-gold is a vivid yellow flower that may meet your height requirement. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a great resource for flower information. You can use their database to input your requirements and come up with a list. Here's the link to the Native Plants Database: http://www.wildflower.org/plants/
Thank you for your posts so far. They are very helpful. In the meantime I did a more or less comprehensive search and I came with a list of plants this size or close. All of them are wild plants, and majority are rock garden flowers. I wonder though if rock plants may grow well in PA where it rains 3 days/week. I have 6 specimens that did not bear an ID. I could not find a way to attach their pictures here so I will post them in the plant ID section. thanks again for help.. George
Rock gardens can be grown in many areas. Here's a nursery from your state specifically supplying rock garden plants, via AgMap, a project of Penn State Univ. Extension: The Rock Garden
Scarlet Pimpernel are tiny round flowers growing like a groundcover, about that height -- I found them on an island offshore Nova Scotia once, I suppose started by English or European settlers... they were very charming, bright little blooms. One could do a search to see where grown in North America... I will look, this reminds me I'd like to acquire some for my garden. Available from Richter's Seeds: http://www.richters.com/Web_store/web_store.cgi?searchterm=pimpernel&search_catalogue_button=Go available from this source, in the USA, apparently: http://www.alchemy-works.com/anagallis_arvensis.html NOTE: this is considered a weed, it seems, in some informative websites, perhaps it gets into grass seed -- but it also seems to be considered a rare heritage plant; certainly very delightful. Also, some descriptions say they grow slightly tallish, but the ones I saw were ground-level, prostrate. Websites also say they are prostrate, often.
Thank you for all answers to my question! Wild plants seems the way to go. Anybody can offer details about retailers (off or on-line) of wild plant seeds that sell in the US or can ship in the US? thank you again.. George
