Gardenbite: Spigelia a native plant for your landscape | #GoodGrowing

In this Gardenbite episode of the Good Growing Podcast, Chris Enroth kicks back over the Fourth of July weekend to flash back to a 2021 chat with Extension educator Elizabeth Wahle, who declares Spigelia her all-time favorite garden plant. Why? Picture a flower dressed for Mardi Gras with scarlet red petals, golden yellow tips, and a flair that hummingbirds can’t resist.

Spigelia marilandica, also known as Indian Pink or Carolina Pink, might become your new favorite native plant!

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Episode Transcript

Chris (00:06):
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith University of Illinois
Extension coming at you from mybackyard. It's fourth of July
weekend, and we are relaxing andhaving a good time. So today, we
have got a garden bite for you,a favorite new native plant of
mine, spigelia. Now this plantin particular is not necessarily

(00:28):
native to where I'm at inIllinois, but it is native to
Southern Illinois.
And we go back to a clip in 2021where we talk with Elizabeth
Wally, who's down in SouthernIllinois about her new favorite
plant of the year that year,which was spigelia, also known
as Indian pink or Carolina pink.So enjoy.

Katie (00:48):
So another plant that I saw that was new to me was the
Indian pink. It looks like it'snature's rethought version of
our native columbine. Is theIndian pink also attractive to
hummingbirds like columbine is?And then also, what do you like
most about the Indian pink?

Elizabeth (01:08):
So how'd you know that that's my favorite all time
plant in my garden? I thinkmaybe you've been talking to
somebody. Spigilla is myfavorite plant. And I don't
know, there's just somethingabout it's like a plant dressed
up for Mardi Gras to me. It isjust scarlet red on the outside
and the tips of the petals ofthe flower are folded back and

(01:33):
it's just yellow, I mean, goldyellow.
You can't get any more contrastthan two primary colors on the
flower, and they're juststunning. And it is an Illinois
native, though it's notthroughout the state, so it has
limited range in Illinois, butit is one of our Illinois
native, more common to more ofour Southeastern states. But

(01:57):
I've had this plant for Istarted it right off from the
very beginning on this property,and it probably took it ten
years before it actually spreadto another site. You know, I
mentioned earlier that I'malways cautious about plants
that spread too much. I thinkthat there's a direct

(02:17):
correlation to how much you likethem and how little they spread.
Seems like the plants you don'twant to spread go all over the
place. Plants that you justwould love to see it in lots of
places are really slow to do it.And so I would rate spigelia as
being a little bit fussy to getestablished. It's not one that

(02:39):
you can just plant in the groundand walk away from it. It
actually needs to have tenderloving care when you first plant
it.
And so it's one that I will,when I'm going to plant another
plant, I will usually buy threeof them and plant them in three
different locations because Inever know which one's going to

(02:59):
take. I just have to increase mychance of survival, and these
are ones, you know, I would ratehelibores and pulmonary in the
same group that once establishedthey're really tough, but
getting them established youneed to check them every day to

(03:19):
make sure that they don't needto be watered or something to
get them established. But justbeautiful. It's one of my
favorites.

Chris (03:26):
Well, was some interesting information about a
newish native plant that I amenjoying having in my own
landscape. The Good Growingpodcast is production of
University of IllinoisExtension, edited this week by
me, Chris Enroth. Hey,listeners. A special thanks to
you. Thank you for doing whatyou do best, and that is
listening.
Or if you're watching this onYouTube watching. And as always,
keep on growing.