Globe mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua) is a gorgeous perennial that is equally at home within an English-style backyard or along a desert roadside. Like desert perennials that are native, it has this is one plant. Globe mallow is a gorgeous addition to the desert scene.
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Botanical name: Sphaeralcea ambigua
Common title: Globe mallow
Resource: Native to arid regions of the American Southwest
USDA zones: 6 to 9 (find your zone)
Water necessity: Low
Light requirement: Entire sun
Mature dimensions: 3 feet tall and broad
Tolerances: Drought tolerant but does best with supplemental watering; manages reflected warmth
Seasonal attention: Orange, red, rose, white or pink flowers appear in spring and intermittently through the year.
When to plant: Plant seeds or bark plants in fall or spring.
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Distinguishing traits. At first glance, world mallow is a rather unassuming plant with gray-green lobed leaves. But when it blooms, it is transformed. Flowers that resemble hollyhocks appear in spring, turning this desert continuing.
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The surprise that world mallow hides is that you can not tell what color the flowers are going to be on a plant until it flowers. Nearly all world mallow plants possess orange blossoms, but in addition, there are plants that make red, rose, white or pink blossoms.
If you don’t enjoy surprises in regard to flower color, there are a few ways to know what color flower a particular world mallow plant will produce.
Buy plants from the nursery when they’re flowering.Take a cutting from a world mallow with the flower color you want.If you enjoy red flowers, there’s a reliable reddish variety of world mallow referred to as ‘Louis Hamilton’.
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If you are more of a daring type, roll the dice and then plant a world mallow without knowing what color it will be. Let it surprise you with its color once it blooms.
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The best way to use it. The delicate-looking blossoms of world mallow make it a fantastic plant to improve a perennial bed, developing a cottage garden look. Other landscape uses for world mallow comprise as a base plant, around a swimming pool and even at a container.
Pair it with additional indigenous desert perennials, including blackfoot daisy (Melampodium leucanthum),desert marigold (Baileya multiradiata),goodding’s verbena (Glandularia gooddingii) and parry’s penstemon (Penstemon parryi).
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Globe mallow can be excellent paired with dark green succulents, such as cow’s horn agave (Agave bovicornuta),for excellent color and texture contrast.
Because world mallow grows easily from seed, it is fantastic for revegetating bare areas.
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Planting notes. The demands of the alluring perennial are a few. It needs to be planted in well-drained soil in full sun and watered every other week at summer and once a month in winter (in the lack of rain) to your best look.
Globe mallow packs a colorful punch in the landscape and requires hardly any maintenance. Simply shear it back to 1 foot once it has finished blooming, to excite another flush of flowering.