Like the champion racehorse Desert Orchid, 'Winter Orchid' is a surefire winner. These short-lived perennial wallflowers start flowering early and keep up a display of sweetly scented, orange, maturing to pink-purple flowers until summer is mostly over.
Browse our other wallflowers, or all our annual bedding flowers.
Erysimum is a brassica, a member of the cabbage family. It is drought-tolerant, and prefers poorer soils with sharp drainage, and alkaline to neutral pH. They are ideal for gravel, Mediterranean-style, and coastal gardens.
It is quite hardy, RHS rating H5, but its foliage will suffer in windy and wet cold winters without protection: a bit of fleece in midwinter goes a long way to keep the worst of it off, or it may be more convenient to grow your wallflowers in pots and move them into shelter. But a well drained, sunny urban microclimate, shielded from the wind by buildings should be fine.
Chop plants in half after flowering. Propagate cuttings to replace plants when they are a few years old
'Winter Orchid' has the delightful characteristic of producing flowers of many hues over its long flowering season. With compact growth, it is perfect for a pot, or place it at the front of the border alongside tulips, lavender and bright green euphorbias.
Part of the series bred by the German nursery Kientzler which include 'Winter Power' (yellow), 'Winter Flame' (orange & pink/purple) and 'Winter Spice' (orange).