Trifolium rubens Seeds - Ruddy clover

Trifolium rubens is a very ornamental species of ruddy clover that is garbed with small, downy, purple-pink flowers all summer long. They emerge above a sparse foliage of leaves that look like those of peanuts.

Native to Central Europe and belonging to the family Fabaceae (just like beans!), it is a fast-growing, bushy perennial plant that attains a height of 45-60 cm and a width of 40 cm. It flowers in summer, in the form of very small flowers that are grouped in very elongated, fluffy spikes, measuring 5 to 8 cm.

Trifolium rubens is hardy (at least down to -15°) and frugal. Place it in any free-draining soil even if it is poor. It is melliferous and is much loved by bees.

Versatile, you can use it on its own as a ground cover, or as a border plant combined with, for example, Pennistum villosum and the adorable Allium sphaerocephalon or even planted in very naturalistic plantbeds similar in design to those of the famous garden designer Pied Oudolf, accompanied by grasses, Sage and foxglove.