One of our favorite rock garden perennials for summer color is the amazing Ruellia ‘Black Beauty’. We love this small, easy-to-grow, unobtrusive perennial, and spent over a decade searching for it after we first saw it in the Maryland garden of the late Alexej (Sasha) Borkovec, where it occurred as a probable hybrid of East Coast US native, Ruellia ciliosa. It behaves just like the native ruellias, except for non-fading, black foliage color, and that it’s doesn’t become a horrid garden weed. In the garden, the winter deciduous Ruellia ‘Black Beauty’ makes a 10″ tall x 18″ wide clump of dark black thumb-shaped leaves. Starting for us in mid-June and continuing through August, the clumps are topped with 2″ mauvy lavender flowers…what a stunner!
Years ago (late 80s/early 90s) Woodlanders Nursery offered a dark-foliaged form of Ruellia ciliosa. I’ve long suspected this is a selection from that strain.
The green version, “Katie” ruellia, is horribly invasive here in Houston Tx. The black version, is a little better but still invasive. If not cut back regularly, gets very straggly looking.
Invasive has become one of the most misused and misunderstood words in the current horticultural lexicon, along with “native”. Ruellia ‘Katie’ is a selection of the North American native R. brittoniana (now R. simplex), while Ruellia ‘Black Beauty’ has no R. simplex in its background. We have grown Ruellia ‘Katie’ for more than 30 years, and while we get some seedlings, it isn’t problematic here as it is in Texas. Being labeled invasive is not the same as a plant being a garden weed. To be invasive, a non-native plant must invade function natural ecosystems displacing natives once population equiliibrium has been reached, causing economic harm. It’s no surprise that Ruellia simplex ‘Katie’ thrives in Texas, which until the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, was actually part of Mexico, where this North American native naturally resides. City, state, county, and country borders are 100% artificially man made, and have nothing to do with where a plant grows or should be allowed to grow. Since Ruellia ‘Black Beauty’ is mostly, if not all, the North American native Ruellia ciliosa (R. caroliniana var. ciliosa), it also, by definition, cannot be invasive.
Thanks Tony and sorry for any misnomers and overused terms. I really dislike Katie Ruellia for its tendency to overtake and spread (even to neighbors yards). I believe, could be wrong of course, that I planted this years ago only to remove it. I will try it again on your information. Our ruellia here in Texas is very reliable even after our occasional hard freeze and flooding – my current is the non clumping groundcover that gets to be about 10” and is easily controllable.
will you offer this for sale?
Plant Delights has offered this every year for the last decade, and plan to continue.