Webmaster has warm purple flowers with a soft lilac edge, the color shading so smoothly it looks airbrushed. At about 2 inches wide, the blooms are large for a spiderwort, and they keep coming over a long season.
Its glaucous blue-green leaves form a polished, compact clump that looks good all season. It grows in sun or shade and is a nice fit for borders, woodland edges and rain gardens.
What it looks like
Triangular, three-petaled flowers about 2 inches wide, warm purple in the center of each petal blending to a soft lilac edge, with fuzzy filaments and yellow-tipped stamens at the center, opening from bud clusters at the stem tips. Leaves are narrow, arching and grass-like with a glaucous blue-green, waxy finish. The plant forms a polished, compact clump 18 to 20 inches tall and 18 to 24 inches wide. At peak it looks like a blue-green mound dotted with two-tone purple and lilac triangles.
Growing it with lavender
Spiderwort prefers richer, moister soil than lavender, so plant it in a rain garden, near a downspout or in a partly shaded border rather than in the dry lavender bed.
Care
Grow in full sun to shade in average to fertile soil with regular moisture; it tolerates damp spots. Hardy in zones 3-9; if the foliage flops or looks tired in midsummer, cut it back by half to get a fresh flush of leaves and flowers.
At a glance
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Botanical name: Tradescantia
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Flower color: Warm purple with a soft lilac edge
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Foliage: Glaucous blue-green
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Growth habit: Clump of arching, grass-like leaves
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Mature size: 18–20 in tall × 18–24 in wide
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USDA hardiness zones: 3–9
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Light: full sun, part sun to part shade, full shade
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Bloom start: Early-June
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Peak bloom: Late-June
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Bloom pattern: Long Blooming
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Deer resistance: Moderately resistant
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Pollinator value: Good
Sizes and shipping
Dormant bare-root plant, sold in boxes of 25 per variety (order in multiples of 25). Bare-root plants ship or are picked up March 1–May 31 only. They are soil-free, so they may ship to every state in that window. Dormant plants often show little or no top growth on arrival; plant or heel them in promptly.