Anthemis cupaniana (or more properly today using its full botanical name – A. puncta subsp. cupaniana) is an extremely common and reliable plant in many English gardens. Although it originates from Italy it is a hardy and resilient plant which is ideal for the herbaceous border or rock garden.
A. cupaniana grows to around 12in in height (including the flowering stems). It has attractive aromatic silvery-grey leaves in a dense mat within the clump. The leaves turn a duller grey-green in winter and clumps can eventually extend to 2-3ft in diameter if space permits.
This perennial produces long lasting white daisy flower heads (2½in across) with yellow centres and white petals. Flowering will continue, here and there, in the clump right into autumn.
For the best flowering performance A. cupaniana should be grown in full sun in sandy or gravelly soil in the rockery. It is however not really fussy and delights in romping away at the edges of herbaceous borders.
A bit of tidying up dead flower heads in winter is all the maintenance it needs and clumps can readily be lifted and divided up in spring to spread this very effective plant more widely in your garden.
We sometimes have available Anthemis ‘Orange Dream’ which flowers as its name implies and A. tinctoria ‘E C Buxton’ which has attractive lemon-yellow flower heads.
