One of my very favourites in the spring garden, perennial Aurinia saxatilis is a rounded mound of gold bling, giving brilliant colour when other plants are just getting ready to put on their own shows. Although short-blooming, basket of gold has beautiful grey-green leaves and a tidy, compact habit for a great look throughout the summer and into autumn. Best of all, I’ve noticed, most critters won’t bug basket of gold (although once I caught a young snowshoe hare taking a snooze in the middle of mine – at least he wasn’t gnawing on it!), and in several seasons, I’ve yet to have problems with diseases of any sort – and that’s in both dry and unusually wet summers. Easy-care and gorgeous – what more can you ask for?
The name game: Aurinia saxatilis is commonly called basket of gold, or more rarely, cloth of gold; it is also known as goldentuft or perennial alyssum due to it’s former taxonomic placement as Alyssum saxatile. You’ll still find it listed as Alyssum in some publications.
Cool cultivars: ‘Citrina’, ‘Summit’, ‘Dudley Nevill Variegated’, ‘Mountain Gold’
Are you growing basket of gold in your garden?
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Flowery Prose. 