Centaurea Silver Swirl

Centaurea ragusina (Silver-Knapweed) – A beautiful white foliaged small cushion shaped mounding evergreen perennial/subshrub to 12 to 18 inches to tall by 2 to 3 feet wide. It has long petioled 6 in long pinnately lobed leaves with the wavy rounded lobes covered in fine white hairs arranged like tight rosettes at short branch tips – these rosettes of decoratively lobed leaves have led some to compare the look of this plant to a snowflake. From late spring through mid-summer and rising just above the foliage on solitary to few branched stems appear the showy 1 1/2 to 2 inch wide bright yellow thistle-like composite flowers, which have long disc florets and no ray ligules sitting on top of the basket-like cluster of brown scaly bracts. Plant in full sun in a well-drained soil and irrigate occasionally to very little.