Cerastium biebersteinii
Mouse-ear chickweed, silver basket, summer snow: these last two names perfectly capture the effect it creates in the garden. In spring, its carpet of silvery foliage literally disappears beneath a blanket of white flowers, like a flow of snow covering the rock garden. Its soft, downy leaves give it the name mouse ear.
Characteristics:
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Evergreen silvery foliage: downy and luminous, it remains decorative all year round, even outside the flowering period.
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Spectacular flowering: a blanket of small, star-shaped white flowers in spring and early summer.
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Fast ground cover: this spreading perennial quickly expands and smothers weeds.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: preferably full sun, or light partial shade — its foliage takes on its most beautiful silvery sheen in the sun.
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Soil: poor, dry, sandy or stony, and absolutely well drained. A crucial point: its silvery felted foliage rots in wet soil, especially in winter. Never amend the soil and avoid overhead watering on the foliage.
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Method: sow in spring, on the surface without covering: the very fine seeds need light to germinate. Simply firm them down and keep them slightly moist until germination. Do not soak them or cold-stratify them. See how to sow your seeds.
Care advice:
- Water very sparingly, only during the first year: afterward, it tolerates drought very well.
- Cut it back after flowering to keep the carpet dense and compact, and divide the clump every 3 years to rejuvenate it.
Beneficial combinations:
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its abundant, early flowering provides a plentiful resource for small pollinators in spring.
- Its evergreen carpet offers shelter close to the ground for beneficial insects and protects the soil from erosion on slopes.
Uses:
- Rock gardens, borders, slopes, retaining walls and gravel gardens. Excellent for quickly covering a dry slope that is difficult to maintain — see our drought-resistant plants.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Leave a few faded flowers to form their small capsules, then harvest them once they are brown and dry, before they open. The seeds are tiny: work over a sheet of paper, sheltered from the wind. See how to store your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose reproducible, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, without any chemical treatment. Our conviction: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
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