Perennial baby's breath spilling over a hillside onto the sidewalk below.
Perennial baby’s breath adds a light, airy presence to your urban garden. The tiny flowers and delicate stems of Gypsophila paniculata seem to hover in the air like little fairies.
In the language of flowers, baby’s breath stands for everlasting love, pureness and innocence. It is often found as a filler in bouquets of flowers, particularly red roses.
Baby’s breath is native to Eurasia but has escaped cultivation and become naturalized in much of North America. In the Great Plains it is considered an invasive plant because it can take over fields, vacant lots and roadside ditches.
The baby’s breath in the picture above is a single plant growing on a small hillside in a front yard. It has outgrown its allotted space and landed on the public sidewalk below.
Perennial baby’s breath is usually grown from seed or division. Double forms are grafted onto seedling rootstock because the seeds do not reliably come true to their parents.
Plant these delicate looking wildflowers in full sun with moist, moderately fertile and well-drained soil. Add limestone if your soil is at all acid. Let them dry out between waterings, but don’t let them get overly dry.
They will grow slowly the first year and begin to produce showy blooms like in the accompanying photo after the second year. Unlike most other flowering perennials, they only need to be divided every 5 or 6 years.
Cut them back after they finish blooming in late June or early July. Keep them watered and give them a side dressing of compost and they will most likely bloom for you again later in the summer.
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