Plant of the Moment-Cuphea ignea ‘Dynamite’

 

Last week while running into one of our annual greenhouses to find a white blooming bacopa in a four pack for a customer,  I was stopped in my tracks once again by a grouping of four pack flats of a tiny little Cuphea ignea called Dynamite.  We have grown and sold Cuphea ignea in the past and in my first summer here, before I worked at Big Bloomers, I bought four of them two pink, and two orangey-red in four inch pots and planted them out in some beds in front of my fenced in front yard.  Not only did they bloom all summer long and attract hummingbirds but they have continued to come back year after year for me.  I even convinced my PIC Peggy to plant them in one of our side beds at work where they ended up looking like a lovely medium sized flowering shrub to see if they would be perennial there also.   We are pleased that even after this past harsh winter with a good covering of snow for a week, the cuphea ignea that she planted there are coming back strongly.

Anyway back to Cuphea ignea ‘Dynamite’.  This cuphea is small topping out at 8-10” and being so would do quite nicely at the front of a border where they would stand up strongly all summer

or in pots where they will cascade a bit.

   

They are heat, humidity and drought tolerant once established and the hummingbirds love them and for this reason they are my plant of the moment.