Saxifraga umbrosa Variegata

Saxifraga umbrosa 'Variegata' is a despair of painters with its variegated foliage. It is unique in appearance but just as easy to grow as its wild parent. This saxifrage forms a wonderful evergreen and colourful ground cover, composed of bright green crassulae rosettes, speckled with yellow and cream. The carpet comes to life in spring with cloudy inflorescences, formed by reddish stems releasing an explosion of white stars with red centres. This perennial will thrive in a cool rockery or border, in poor but moist soil. Plant it in partial shade, even under trees.

Saxifraga umbrosa is the true 'despair of painters'. It is a Pyrenean botanical species that belongs to the Saxifragaceae family. The growth rate of this small perennial is quite slow.

The 'Variegata' form is distinguished by its foliage randomly speckled with bright yellow and cream-white. Its adult size will not exceed 10cm (4in) in height, 30cm (12in) in flower. It forms thick-leaved rosettes that create a carpet, slowly spreading over time through stolons anchored in rock crevices and between stones, in the smallest pockets of humus. The foliage is composed of round and thick petiolate leaves. They are spoon-shaped with very serrated edges and a shiny appearance. The flowering takes place in May-June, in the form of bare and branched red stems emerging from the rosettes, bearing small simple white flowers delicately dusted with dark red at the centre.

This 'despair of painters' can be used to define paths and borders, but can also be used for larger areas. For example, it will thrive very well on banks where grass is scarce. It can also replace moss that invades a shaded end of the lawn: this area can be dug out to plant a carpet of saxifrages. For the same reason, this plant will serve as ground cover between shrubs and trees. A wonderful hiding place, it adapts without any difficulty to the poorest sandy soil or shady locations. It proves to be very valuable in the most unfavourable areas of the garden, such as in the shade, in the north. Use saxifrage to conceal a portion of soil where stones or construction waste have been buried. It also works well in a large container, for example.

These plants often grow in rock crevices. It was long believed that this plant has medicinal properties and could eliminate kidney stones. In the family of rockery plants, the genus "saxifraga" constitutes a particular category comprising more than 450 species. Saxifrages can reach the highest peaks of the highest mountains. In these inhospitable places, nature has created magicians of survival.