It's time to rediscover Potentillas

Under used and under-appreciated, cinquefoils have huge garden potential and will bring months of colour. Make 2020 the year you give them a try, says Louise Curley

- Louise Curley

PARTICULARLY popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the celebrated French plant breeder Victor Lemoine created many new hybrids, potentillas used to be widely grown. But as tastes changed they fell out of favour, and these days seeing them in the garden has become a bit of a novelty – which is a great shame as there are few plants as unfussy and low maintenance, or as free-flowering.

Potentillas come from a wide range of habitats, including dry, rocky places, bogs and acid fens, sandy soils and grassland, in Europe, the Himalayas, North America and even the Arctic. The two types most commonly grown in gardens are the deciduous shrubby ones – with a woody framework of stems covered in wild rose-like flowers in summer – and herbaceous perennials that emerge from below ground in spring, with strawberry-like leaves and blooms. There are also alpine potentillas that are perfect for troughs and rockeries. They’re a member of the rose family – hence the flowers – and the common name cinquefoil refers to the five leaflets that make up each actual leaf.

New name

Recently, Potentilla fruticosa, the shrubby cinquefoil, has had its name changed to Dasiphora fruticosa. However this change has yet to be widely accepted and, for the moment at least, you’re still most likely to see the plants labelled as potentillas.

Both the shrubby and herbaceous types come in a good range of colours – some in pastel shades of pink, apricot and lemon yellow, others in vibrant reds and oranges. Shrubby potentillas make neat, rounded forms, whereas the herbaceous perennials divide into two groups: those with an upright habit and those with lax stems that naturally sprawl. The latter look lovely planted to tumble over the edges of paths.