Ligularia dentata Garden Confetti - Leopard Plant

Ligularia dentata Garden Confetti is a highly decorative cultivar. Its large leaves are spotted or rather splashed with dark green, lime green, cream, and pink. The veins and the underside of the leaf are magenta in colour. Throughout the season, its shades evolve into purple and bronze. This plant, also known as leopard plant, is a tall perennial that deserves a prominent place in gardens. Its spectacular, cordate, rounded, and generous foliage and its fragrant flowers are its greatest assets. It produces lovely star-shaped flowers resembling yellow-orange daisies in the middle of summer, as if placed above its foliage. Ligularia thrives in partial shade and gentle sunlight, where it never lacks water.  

Ligularia dentata Garden Confetti belongs to the Asteraceae family. This robust perennial forms a wide, compact tuft of about 80 cm (32in) in height and 90 cm (35in) in width under favourable conditions. Its growth is quite slow. The deciduous foliage emerges in spring and dries up in autumn. The leaves reach 30 cm (12in) in length and are carried by long petioles. They are leathery, cordate at the base, very rounded, with serrated edges. In July and August, large corymbs of bright yellow-orange heads with a brown center, measuring 10 cm (4in) in diameter, bloom at the top of tall, dark purple, branching stems.

Plant Ligularia dentata Garden Confetti in moist, rich, deep, neutral to acidic soil. This plant cannot tolerate water shortage. It adapts well to clay soils if they are humus rich and not waterlogged. Growing vigorously in moist and deep soils, it can cover significant areas. It pairs well with royal ferns, Himalayan blue poppies, loosestrifes, and willowherbs to adorn the edges of water features, for example. It will naturalise well wherever the soil is consistently moist and protected from scorching sunlight.