Cleome hassleriana, often referred to as spider flower, is a plant native to South America that can easily be grown around your home in Mississippi. This plant has grapefruit-sized clusters of flowers (termed an inflorescence) and distinct palmate leaves. Cleome is drought-tolerant, deer-resistant, pest-free and will attract a whole host of pollinators to your backyard. The plant blooms with a mildly sweet fragrance from mid-May to early fall in Mississippi and will attract butterflies, moths (including the strikingly impressive hummingbird moth) and hummingbirds. The blooms are white, light to radiant pink or purple and often interspersed on a single inflorescence.
Cleome grows to a height of 5 feet in well-drained soil and full sun and creates a colorful backdrop to shorter-statured features of your flowerbed. At my home in Warren County, I have a dozen or more planted along with canna and use them as a natural screen to an above-ground propane tank.
Although Cleome is considered an annual, it is a prolific self-seeder that comes back year to year in Mississippi, similar to zinnia or sunflower. If you don’t want lots of them around your home the next season, simply cut the seed pods from the plant before they open up. Personally, I enjoy having them come back in strong numbers each year, as I’m typically a perennial gardener and don’t enjoy planting things I have to repurchase again the following year.
Although you aren’t likely to find Cleome seedlings at your local garden center, search out specialty nurseries that will order you a seed packet.
STORY Nathan Beane
PHOTOGRAPHS Nathan Beane
