Bowles's Mauve Wallflower Plants

Erysimum linifolium glaucum 'Bowles Mauve' - Perennial Wallflower

If you want value for money from your plants, Erysimum Bowles Mauve, is up there with the best, even being shortlisted for the RHS Chelsea Plant of the Centenary for 1973-1982. This most well-known of perennial wallflowers carries fragrant spires of rich purple flowers above a mass of narrow, dark grey-green leaves.

However, it is the length of time that it flowers that is quite incredible - from February to July is normal, although in favourable sites with sharp drainage and full sun in the south, it can keep flowering year round. It's in these conditions that you'll get the best fragrance, too. It also has the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit, bestowed on plants that perform well repeatedly in ordinary gardens.

Browse our range of wallflowers, our bedding plants, or perennial plants.

Features

• Colour: Deep purple.
• Flowering: February to July.
• Fragrance: Strong.
• Foliage: Dark grey-green.
• Height x Spread: 75cm x 60cm
• Spacing: 60cm.
• Position: Full sun.
• Soil: Well-drained, alkaline or neutral.
• Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit.

Growing 'Bowles Mauve'

'Bowles Mauve' may be a short-lived perennial but makes up for this with a vivid display for months in a sunny border. Try to plan plants around these purple wallflowers from February to July - from early yellow daffodils such as 'Tete a Tete' and Hellebores, moving on to vivid lime-green Euphorbia characias wulfenii in April/May and late-flowering tulips in sunset shades. By early summer, introduce annual Californian poppies and dwarf sunflowers, which will hide any straggliness as the flowers end and after you trim them back.

This is a wonderful plant in raised beds in a sensory garden, where you can really appreciate the tell-tale wallflower fragrance and the plants will love the sharp drainage.

A member of the cabbage family, drought-tolerant and lover of poor soils, 'Bowles Mauve' makes an ideal plant for gravel, Mediterranean-style and coastal gardens, along with herbaceous perennials such as Echinops ritro and Eryngium. A note of caution - it will not tolerate cold, wet winters and may need some protection in damp climates and in the north of the UK.

In Your Garden Design

Rock garden or raised bed, this is a plant that will give a fabulous display for months. Put it with a creeping rosemary to add fantastic fragrance or plant several of them in a container to create a lovely patio display. Think colour combinations with these plants - pair with similar shades of add zest by putting it alongside various shades of yellow: primula vulgaris would look fabulous alongside it. Also pair with Hebe 'Blue Star' or Marshmallow and Pulmonaria 'Blue Ensign'.

Did You Know?

The plant is named after one of England's greatest amateur gardeners, Edward 'Gussie' Augustus Bowles (1865-1954), great-uncle of Andrew Parker-Bowles, first husband of the Duchess of Cornwall. Viola 'Bowles Black', Bowles Golden Sedge (Carex elata 'Aurea') and Bowles Golden Grass (Milium effusum 'Aureum') are among the other plants named after him.