Plant Care Library

Other Names:  Joseph's Coat, Calico Plant, Joy Weed

Brand:  Hort Couture

Description:

This showy ground cover plant is perfect as a landscape edging plant, and is great for basing containers, tolerates partial shade, but most vivid color is produced in full sun

Ornamental Features

Sommelier™ Chardonnay Alternanthera's attractive crinkled pointy leaves emerge buttery yellow in spring, turning lime green in color the rest of the year on a plant with a spreading habit of growth.

Landscape Attributes

Sommelier™ Chardonnay Alternanthera is a dense herbaceous annual with a ground-hugging habit of growth. Its medium texture blends into the garden, but can always be balanced by a couple of finer or coarser plants for an effective composition.

This plant will require occasional maintenance and upkeep, and should not require much pruning, except when necessary, such as to remove dieback. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Sommelier™ Chardonnay Alternanthera is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• Border Edging
• General Garden Use
• Groundcover
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Sommelier™ Chardonnay Alternanthera will grow to be only 6 inches tall at maturity, with a spread of 10 inches. When grown in masses or used as a bedding plant, individual plants should be spaced approximately 8 inches apart. Its foliage tends to remain low and dense right to the ground. Although it's not a true annual, this plant can be expected to behave as an annual in our climate if left outdoors over the winter, usually needing replacement the following year. As such, gardeners should take into consideration that it will perform differently than it would in its native habitat.

This plant does best in full sun to partial shade. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. It is not particular as to soil pH, but grows best in rich soils. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid.

Sommelier™ Chardonnay Alternanthera is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. Because of its spreading habit of growth, it is ideally suited for use as a 'spiller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the edges where it can spill gracefully over the pot. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden.