Last year I tried the Proven Winner annual Cleome ‘Senorita Blanca’ and was very impressed that the flowers bloomed from spring until fall without any help from me. I never deadheaded them and some of the flowers lasted for months!
I purchased 3 plants and my only “complaint” (using the word very loosely) is that I put them in the back row of a flowerbed and they only got about 24 inches tall. Their listed height is 24-48 inches.
This spring I was going to purchase more ‘Senorita Blanca’ plants, but instead I got enticed by its sister plant, the lavender-pink ‘Senorita Rosalita’ instead.
Oh my what rock stars these plants are! I put them in a sunnier location than last year’s plants and they grew 48 inches tall. They’ve been blooming since early June and are still going strong.
The snapdragons, zinnias and verbena I planted nearby are struggling to compete with real estate because ‘Senorita Rosalita’ is so robust!
I put three plants in my pollinator bed so I would have some guaranteed color while I waited for the later-blooming perennials to strut their stuff. At first I thought they were duds for any kind of pollinator activity. But in July when the hummingbirds finally showed up, they started visiting these flowers regularly. And I have seen a lot of bumblebees landing on the flowers as well.
I have not deadheaded a single flower this summer. That means some of the blooms are more than 8 weeks old now!
I will definitely be growing these plants again next year!