Name: Mecardonia hybrid ‘GoldDust’™

Zones: Hardy to 9 – 11.  An annual in NC

Size: 2 -5  inches tall and spread 12 – 16 inch spread.

Conditions: Sun; normal moisture

Proven Winners has many gardeners and garden writers, like me, across the country trialing their new introductions.  The expectation from Proven Winners when sending trial plants, is for us to grow them out, and report back to Proven Winners our experience, good or bad.  This gives good, reliable data on how a certain plant will do in our area, in my case, zone 7B.  Of course, the zone only reports the low temps, so it doesn’t really matter with an annual; and of course, says nothing more…more important information is that, here in Raleigh, we have hot and humid summers, day and night, unpredictable rain fall, and clay.

Often times, when trialing plants,  I wish my clay soil was not amended, so I could give a brutal, “real life” gardening experience.  But, then again, I hope readers of this blog have learned the benefits of amending the soil and are doing so in their own garden.

In the spring, when the new introductions arrived on my front door step, I opened the box peering down, spying  GoldDust as part of several sent.

The plant name, GoldDust, gave me an indication of what the plant would look like. Often times, plant names can be deceiving. (I’m digressing here, but I have a burning desire to name a plant….)

In my garden that I call Helen’s Haven, I’ve created an area along the driveway to trial these plants. This allows me to monitor the plant progress often.  Many other plants go to various parts of the garden.

During the summer, I watched GoldDust with great delight.  It reached about 2.5 inches high and about 14 inches wide, spilling along the driveway edge, softening the the look of the flagstone.  The intense yellow color gave rise the the name GoldDust.  Good call Proven Winners’ plant naming people…Kerry, was that you?

I never watered it, once established; who has time to invest in an annual.  Seriously (no offense Proven Winners), if I’m going to take the time to water, it will be in plants offering long term benefit, like perennials, shrubs, trees and such.  Mind you, if I grew it in a container, I would have watered it, if need be.

My results of GoldDust – it did brilliantly.  GoldDust’s great success made it such that I want more next year.  GoldDust is low maintenance, colorful, and liking of our heat (and humidity.)

I can see it growing in containers, along a bed’s edge, and as ground cover filler throughout the garden.

Available in garden centers this spring, I will just have the ante up and pay for my own next year, but given it’s performance, I will do just that.