The name Silvers 

Saxifrages from the Ligulatea section are often named as 'Silvers'   This comes from the Silvery grey leaves especially when grown in poor gravelly soil 

An other important feature is the encrustment on the leave edges, which is infact lime sweating

Soil Mix

Most Silvers are rather easy to grow in a well drained poor gravelly soil. Please do not feed them too much they do not need that and don't like it. Give an open spot, and most can stand a certain amount of sun. In our catalogue you can find description for each individual Silver.

Importance in the Alpine garden 

Silvers are very important for us Alpine gardeners for they flower after most Porophyllum Saxifrages and General Alpines are out of flower.  They start to flower in May and June and can flower rather long when weather is not to warm.   They can deal with a fair amount of sun and wil do best in a rather poor and gravelly soil mixture.

Flowering 

They all flower with a spike with many,many litlle flowers which gives a great display in our alpine gardens.

The flower color is mostly white or white with small red dots.    A few Silvers are creamy, rose or red.

Flower stems can be very long up to 50-60 cm!   Or small up to 5-10 cm with the more dwarfish silvers.

Photo by Adrian Young

The importance of Silvers in our alpine garden

But the most important feature of the Silvers are ofcourse the rosettes!   Like the Porophyllum Saxifrages...the Silvers are whole year long....GREEN!.   

And some can 'color' reddish in atumn and winter, which gives this magnificent plants something

even more extra!

So when all the other Alpines are out of flower or gone during autumn and winter ......the Saxifrages give your garden the 'body' it needs!

So Saxifrages are the only Alpines which are 'Green' all year...and that's why a very wise saying is;

'Saxifraga's are the backbone of the alpine garden'