Dusty Miller is a beautiful flowering plant that is often mistaken for Silver Ragwort. It’s easy to identify Dusty Miller by its silver foliage and thin, spindly stems. The flowers are small, but they make up for their size with their vibrant yellow color. Dusty Miller can be used in flower arrangements or as a ground cover.
Dusty Miller is a beautiful flowering plant that is often mistaken for Silver Ragwort. It’s easy to identify Dusty Miller by its silver foliage and thin, spindly stems. The flowers are small, but they make up for their size with their vibrant yellow color. Dusty Miller can be used in flower arrangements or as a groundcover plant. If you’re looking for something different in your garden, consider adding Dusty Miller to your landscape.
What Is a Dusty Miller?
The perennial plant species Jacobaea maritima, also known as silver ragwort or dusty miller, is a Mediterranean endemic in the genus Jacobaea in the family Asteraceae. It was previously classified as Senecio cineraria and is still widely known as Senecio cineraria.
It is grown in ornamental pots as an attractive white, felt-like tomentose foliage plant; it’s also known as dusty miller in horticultural usage, a term shared by a number of other plants with silvery tomentose leaves including Centaurea cineraria and Silene coronaria.
White Wooly Ragwort is a fast-growing, evergreen subshrub that grows to 0.5–1 m in height and has fluffy white hairs. At the base, the stems are rigid and woody, with numerous branching and matted grey-white to white hairs. The leaves are pinnate or pinnatifid, 5–15 cm long and 3–7 cm broad, somewhat stiff, with oblong and obtuse segments that are gradually becoming broader towards the base. The lower leaves are petiolate while the upper ones are sessile and less lobed.
Bees (e.g., Anthidium manicatum and Anthidium oblongatum in Megachilidae) utilize the tomentum, or hair-like pieces on the stems and leaves, of some species of densely tomentose plants for nest construction.
The hybrid varieties are known as Jacobaea erucifolia and Jacobaea vulgaris. The fertile form of the J. vulgaris variety produces a wide range of intermediate offspring.
Usage and Cultivation of Dusty Millers:
The western and central Mediterranean region, northwest Africa, southern Europe, and the far west of Asia are home to the Dusty Miller. They are most commonly found on cliffs and rocky coastlines, but they do occur in more rural areas.
They have also been naturalised further north in Europe (northern England and Ireland, where they are found mostly in mild coastal regions), as well as locally in North America.
Dusty Miller is a fast-growing and adaptable annual, suitable for container gardening. Its silvery leaves make it popular in the horticulture industry. It withstands winter temperatures as low as -12° to -15°C and light shade but prefers full sun in the United States. It is cultivated as an annual plant. It’s been used in the United States and Canada for its fire resistance, salt tolerance, and browsing resistance by deer.
Dusty Miller: Also Known as Silver Ragwort Result
Dusty Miller (Silver Ragwort) is an appealing, silvery-leaved alternative to perennials when grown as annuals. It needs very little attention, making it the ideal option for small areas or people who enjoy gardening but do not have much time. This versatile plant is drought-tolerant and fire resistant, making it the ideal plant choice for difficult growing environments. In addition, because it’s been cultivated in North America since 1742, Dusty Miller has no natural predators that would threaten herbaceous plants of the same family.
F.A.Q
Is Silver ragwort poisonous?
While all Ragworts are generally considered to be poisonous to livestock and humans, Silver Ragwort is said to contain some of the highest levels of these toxic Pyrrolizidine Alkaloids.
Are there different varieties of dusty miller?
Silver Dust is shorter than the basic species and has finely, divided, almost lacy foliage. Silver Lace is a full size plant with petit finely divided leaves.
