Alchemilla Care Guide: How to Grow Alchemilla

Alchemilla Care

Lady’s mantle is not a fussy plant, and it tolerates a range of soil conditions including relatively heavy clay. Once established, it is fairly drought tolerant, and it will grow in exposed or sheltered conditions, in full sun or semi shade, and in any aspect. It does best and keeps its attractive colour and form for longer in a sheltered, free-drained spot in a sunny border.

Newly planted lady’s mantle plants should be watered regularly until the roots have settled and are growing well. A light feed with a general purpose, potash-based fertiliser will help this process.

Once established, lady’s mantle is generally happy looking after itself. Once the flowers start to go over, the plant will produce a lot of fertile seed, so they can be deadheaded if the gardener wishes to avoid masses of invasive seedlings. Any older leaves that start to turn brown can also be removed.

To maintain maximum vigour, overcrowded clumps of lady’s mantle can be lifted and divided in spring or autumn. Cut the root-ball with a sterilised knife, and replant the sections into soil refreshed with garden compost or another suitable organic material. Keep watered until established.

If the plants are grown in a mulched herbaceous border, mulch around the plant, but keep it well clear of the stems to avoid encouraging rot.

Light requirements

Alchemilla does well in any aspect and in positions that provide full sun or semi-shade. While it may not be so vigorous or flower so freely, it will tolerate awkward shady spots.

Watering

Lady’s mantle is fairly drought tolerant once established, though in the hottest of early to mid summers the leaves and flowers may brown when left in the full sun without water for extended periods. It is worth investing some effort into watering at such times to maintain the vigour and appearance of the plant. The use of a fine spray will also help to create masses of shiny drops on the leaves, which may be a welcome reminder of early morning dew in the spring.

Soil conditions

The plant is not at all fussy about soil, and it will tolerate most conditions, from heavy clays to free-draining sands, though it will not grow in permanently boggy conditions. A moist but well-drained loam is the ideal. While it generally does best in a neutral to slightly acidic soil between a pH of 6.0 and 7.0, it will grow quite happily right across the typical garden soil pH range.

Fertilisers

Once established, a lady’s mantle will not require feeding.

Looks good with

Lady’s mantle has its own charm and unpretentious beauty and it can be eye-catching in mass planting during the flowering season, but one of the principal reasons for using lady’s mantle in the garden is to bring together other plants in planting design – it acts as a foil and a binding agent that sticks a herbaceous border together, without causing any distraction from the more prominent plants.

The lime green foliage is particularly effective when used around purples and blues, such as the flowers of Alliums, cat mint, Ajuga, Stachys and Russian sage, or the foliage of Heuchera, Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurea’, and the black mondo grass, Ophiopogon planiscapus, focussing attention and bringing out the full colours of the companion plants.

It has the additional advantage of forming a dense ground cover around the base of plants like Alliums whose interest is at the top of the plant and which might look less attractive when the rather messier lower part of the plant is exposed.

Lady’s mantle is also a popular component of traditional romantic cottage gardens, and brings early spring colour alongside foxgloves and violets, then forms a framework for the developing campanulas, perennial geraniums, hollyhocks and phlox. It can similarly be used in more contemporary plantings, and used to frame groups of emergent, exotic looking and colourful blooms such as Agapanthus, daylilies and

It can also be used as ground cover in rose beds and open shrub borders, and the foliage provides a particularly effective background foil to the darker foliage of plants such as Cotinus ‘Royal Purple’, Japanese maples, Hebe ‘Mrs Winder’ and the dark-foliaged elders such as Sambucus nigra ‘Black Beauty’.  It also forms an attractive contrast when planted in front of a copper or purple beech hedge.

Such is its versatility that it looks equally at home in a dry gravel garden with euphorbia, sea kale and sea holly, or as part of a wilder meadow planting with grasses, daisies, sunflowers and Rudbeckia.

Lady’s Mantle also looks great along the edge of a garden or pathway, where it can lean over and soften hard edges and where the dewdrop effect can be enjoyed at close quarters and to its best advantage. It self-seeds quite freely into gravel and the cracks between paving slabs, and plants can be allowed to develop to create an informal appearance, but are quite easily removed when they outgrow the space.

Pruning

In a sheltered position, the foliage will remain attractive for most of the year but if the plants start to look a little ragged in a more exposed position or after a dry spell, they can be cut back to the ground. Depending on the time of year, fresh new foliage will emerge soon afterwards, or in the following early spring.  If the foliage looks tired and is starting to brown in July before the flowers are over, it may be useful to lift and divide the plant, or to give it a little supplementary feed.

Some gardeners routinely cut back the fading flower heads and foliage in early August to stop self-seeding around the plant, and in good conditions and a mild autumn, the plant may produce a second flush of flowers.  Preventing a gradual build-up of dead and dying leaves around the plant in this way may also help to eliminate hiding places for pests, especially slugs and snails.