Plant Pick: Miniature Sea Pink or Sea Thrift In Hypertufa
A few years ago, I had some miniature armeria or “sea pink” in my hypertufa troughs and I really loved those cute little plants. These particular miniature armeria grow in a tiny cushion of spikey leaves but pop up some taller flowers a few inches above the original mound. Such a cute site in spring! An armeria is a perennial so it will spread and come back year after year…for a while. Most of the time they are short lived, but some varieties will seed and come back each year to spread nicely.
Various cultivars of the armeria are available and these carnation-like plants come in different sizes for any garden. The taller varieties make great cut flowers for small vases, so look into those if you love a scented flower in your cutting garden. Who wouldn’t?
Choosing a particular flowering plant for my hypertufa pots, I want the tiniest little mounds of green among some stones in the pot. I think those will work out beautifully and I will have to do a “catch up” post later to show all the blooms when they some. It blooms in late spring and early summer so they should be here shortly.
The tiny mound of this miniature armeria has a color sometimes referred to as olive green, but I would describe it as sort of a dusty green, maybe a muted green. Then the little pink flowers floating above the foliage on thin stems just make a beautiful site in the hypertufa. Armeria is a great drought-tolerant plant so I think it is a great choice for my porous and well-draining hypertufa.
Statistics for the Miniature Sea Pink or Sea Thrift
- Full sun
- Sandy soil (rich soil could make it floppy)
- Height 2-4 inches or 5-10 cm
- Spread 8-12 inches or 20-30 cm
- USDA Zones 3-9
The variety that I have to plant today ( I got it in a plant haul. Did you see it on YouTube?) is the Armeria maritima “Victor Reiter”. These plants are called Sea Pink or Sea Thrift, sometimes Lady’s Cushion, and I can sure see why it would be called cushion. Doesn’t that small ball of foliage look like a cushion. I am loving this for a hypertufa bowl. I am planting some stones to be included but I want to also include some stone mulch to be sure that the edges of the spikey leaves don’t touch the ground.
Here are a couple of really cute varieties of miniature armeria that I will be getting this spring. There are taller varieties if you like that better. These plants do make a lovely swath through the garden. The links below are #affiliate links through Amazon.
Armeria maritima “Alba” white flowers
Armeria maritima “Splendens” pink flowers
Thanks for visiting today. I have so many more hypertufa planters to plant up this spring. Maybe I will film them all and put it up on my YouTube channel so that you can enjoy it with me. Looking forward to it!