When desiring to plant a species of the cuphea plant known as 'cigar plants,' be firm with your resolve to never smoke again as its flowers resemble tiny lighted cigars. Gaze, instead, at how birds - particularly the hummingbirds and the butterflies, are magnetically drawn to them. This is guaranteed to make you smile as you re-discover life's simple pleasures.
The cuphea plant is a genus of about 260 species of colorful perennial flowering plants that grow in warm temperate and tropical climatic regions of the country. The cuphea plant species range from low-growing herbs to shrubs that reach a height of about 2 meters. The vibrant and diverse colors and shapes of the cuphea plant makes it ideal for growing in planters, window boxes, raised beds, hanging baskets or as garden borders. The cuphea plant offers complementation, contrast and limitless landscaping alternatives to your garden.
The popular varieties of the cuphea plant include the following:
Mexican Heather or False Heather: This cuphea plant comes in dwarf or shrub form and has petite, deep green and shiny leaves with small flowers of either white, pink, or light purple. A newer slower growing variety of the Mexican Heather comes in leaves of gold and abundant pink flowers.
Cigar Plant or Firecracker Plant: Apart from looking like lighted cigars, the black-tipped bright orange blooms of this variety can also look like little burning embers, thus the firecracker plant name. The plant grows up to a foot tall and occasionally trails making it perfect for hanging baskets or planters together with other plants. Other species of the cigar plant include the dark-reddish spike flowering 'David Verity' that can grow up to 2 feet or the Deep Orange Coleus with copper-colored leaves.
Bat Face, Bunny Ears, or Tiny Mice: This cuphea plant was nicknamed as such because of its tubular flowers within two large round petals creating an illusion of a cluster of little faces or bat faces with large ears. Being more tolerant of drought than other cuphea plant species, this variety is ideal for xeriscaping or xerogardening - landscape design that minimizes the use of water. This cuphea plant is also attractive to hummingbirds.
Having woody arching spikes, this cuphea plant is suitable for hanging baskets or planters, mixed containers or even as a groundcover. Species of this cuphea plant can either have a combination of dark purple and red blooms, pink and violet blooms, dark red and purple blooms, tubular yellow and orange flowers with purple 'ears' nestling atop them, spreading stems of violet and red flowers, and a plant variety with a cream center surrounded by six purple petals.
Giant Cigar Plant: This variety is a shrub that can reach up to 4 feet with larger flowers than the cigar plant. Having orange, yellow, or white tubular flowers that resemble candy corn, this cuphea plant variety exerts the most power over hummingbirds.
Propagating and Growing the Cuphea Plant
The cuphea plant can be propagated from seed, cuttings, or the whole plant itself. Cuphea plants, when newly-purchased, have only a few flower spikes. Growth can be rapid however, and soon flowers envelop the whole plant. Most species continue to bloom from late spring up to early fall.
Grow a cuphea plant now and let your garden breathe with the colors of the rainbow while strumming to the soothing music of hummingbirds. Indeed, heaven can sometimes be on earth.
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