THALICTRUM DELAVAYI - MEADOW RUE

Even if your garden is just plain full, there is always a spot for this elegant weaver. Thalictrum delavayi (T. dipterocarpum) is a wonderful plant for the mid-border. It prefers a sunny or part shade location in any good well draining garden soil.

This meadow rue has three times ternate, small, roundish leaves, dark green on top and a blue green backside. It grows to 120 - 150 cm (4-5 feet) tall and produces small and dainty but profuse lilac-rose flowers with a boss of yellow stamens dangling from large open panicles in July and August. Thalictrum delavayi likes the support and companionship from some sturdy neighbors like Echinacea, Monarda and Panicum. I am always just as impressed with the flowers as with the seeds that set and turn color over the course of the fall from green to a mauve-green and finally brown. Besides being a wonderful garden plant, Thalictrum is also a great filler for the vase, in flower as well as in seed.

Other flower variations of T. delavayi are Thalictrum delavayi ‘Album’, a pure white flowered version and T. delavayi ‘Hewitt’s Double’, a double flowered form.

This plant portrait is provided by Free Spirit Nursery Inc., Langley, B.C. Please see the listing under “Nurseries and Garden Centers” for more information.

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