Container Gardening Plants: Guara

I love, love, love this plant! It’s unusual, stands up to the high prairie winds here in Minnesota, is heat and drought tolerant and is ever-blooming. And best yet, no need to dead head. What’s not to like about that?

The delicate tendrils keep shooting out flowers to ever higher heights giving the plant just that much more to wave in the wind. Deadheading this plant stunts flowering for a time. I don’t recommend it except at planting time if the plant is spindly. I tried it later in the season and regretted it.

Guara is a Texas native perennial that is grown as a specialty annual in colder climates. The plant is used to much harsher conditions than the summers in Minnesota. It has done very well the last few summers in the hot, dry weather. It may not fare as well in a cooler, wetter summer but as we haven’t had one in a while I can’t say for sure.

The growth habit is tall with delicate tendrils which continue to shoot outward as the season wears on. The plant runs the risk of looking spindly if not planted with good companion plants. Use spreading or mounding plants such as fiber optic grass, brachycome, trailing verbena, or petunias to give the planter a full look. These mounding plants also accentuate the delicate blooms of the guara as they appear to shoot out of the container like fireworks.

Guara comes in shades of pink ranging from bright fuchsia to almost white. Foliage colors range from bright green to dark variegated burgundy. In the variegated varieties the foliage is as gorgeous as the flowers and adds more sizzle to containers.

Plant a couple in of these ever blooming beauties in containers and watch your flowers dance all summer. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Growing Art: Container Garden Design of the Week

Prairie Beauty

Plants: Gaura (1), fiber optic grass (2), trailing verbena (2)

This is a great design for those windy spots in your yard. Guara looks like a delicate plant but don’t let its appearance fool you. This is a Texas native that also stands up to heat, drought and humidity. In windy areas, rather than get beat down or shredded, the delicate pink flowers dance in the wind, enhancing the beauty of the plant and adding interest in the garden.

Trailing verbena is a spreading plant rather than a true trailer and fills in the base of the guara nicely. I like to use purple as a strong contrast to the pink flowers. Lavender or pink trailing verbena would work well also depending on your color preferences.

In the corners, use fiber optic grass. This plant does double duty as filler and a trailing plant. I do recommend splitting this plant (2 plants for 4 corners) as it is a vigorous grower. In the picture you’ll notice the fiber optic grass is taking over. In fact the trailing verbena gets lost in all that grass and this picture is really a cautionary tale. This is what you don’t want. It will fill in quickly even if it looks sparse at first.



These plants can all take full sun and would do well in either a south or west exposure. I have had it on the east side of my house and it has done very well there as well.

Truly the best part of this arrangement is how well it stands up to wind. As long as the plants get at least 6 hours of sun, put this container in any windy spot in your yard where other plants get windblown. You’ll be amazed at the beauty of this container.