Cirsium tuberosum
Tuberous thistle
Also known as Carduus tuberosus
- Height × spread
- 0.6m × 0.4m
- Position
- Full sun
- Hardiness
- Colder than -20C (RHS H7)
- Flowers
- Summer
Availability
Please ask in store about availability
Many plants are seasonal. Call 01234 567890 to check current stock.
About this plant
A rare southern British native also found in France and Germany. It makes an upstanding plant with softly bristled green leaves, having deep-cut jagged lobes that have cotton-like indumentum on their underside. The light purple flowers are held on long silvered-beige stalks and open from pretty layered green bracts. The flower itself is like an informal thistle and the threadlike petals open to a ball, rather like the flower of an ethereal allium. Loved by bees and insects, this will flower all summer if regularly deadheaded. If you don't deadhead, the flowers disintegrate untidily. Good in a herbaceous border or wild garden, a delight.
- Flower colour
- Purple
- Foliage colour
- Green
- Variegated
- No
- Scent
- No
- Shape
- Column
- Height
- 0.6m
- Spread
- 0.4m
- Season of interest
- Summer
- Flowers in
- Summer
- Evergreen
- Deciduous
- Garden style
- Wild flower meadow, Prairie garden, Cottage garden
- Sun or shade
- Likes full sun
- Soil type
- Chalk
- Soil pH
- Alkaline, Neutral
- Drainage
- Well drained soil, Dry soil
- Hardiness
- Colder than -20C (RHS H7)
- Borders & containers
- Borders
- Use for
- Ground cover, Bee attraction, Butterfly attraction
- Hazards
- Yes, leaves are prickly
Spring
Spring - late · Outdoors
Feed with slow release fertiliser
Apply a general purpose slow release fertiliser, spreading it around the root area of the plant as it is coming into growth. (Or apply a liquid feed at regular intervals throughout the growing season.)
This is a simple way to provide a nutrient boost as a single annual procedure.
Spring-Autumn · Outdoors
Water during dry periods
For plants in the ground, when there has been little or no rain for a period of 7-10 days and the soil is dry, give it a deep watering and repeat weekly until there is a downpour of rain. Check plants in pots more frequently, especially in hot weather.
Spring - early-mid · Planting
Divide when too large
The plant can be divided if it becomes too large or another plant is required. This may involve physically dividing the clump in two, removing offsets or small bulbs or dividing rhizomes. The new plants can be grown in pots or planted in the ground.
Found in
More Cirsium
Cirsium
Plume thistle, Thistle
Cirsium acaule
Dwarf thistle, Plume thistle
Cirsium arvense
Creeping thistle, Canada thistle
Cirsium eriophorum
Woolly thistle
Cirsium rivulare 'Atropurpureum'
Plume thistle, Thistle, Brook thistle
Cirsium rivulare 'Trevor's Blue Wonder'
Brook thistle
Cirsium vulgare
Spear thistle, Bull thistle, Boar thistle
Cirsium 'Mount Etna'
Ornamental thistle