Tradescantia virginiana has many common names - Trinity flower, Job's Tears, Widow's Tears, Spiderwort. It also has many colors. The most common color, a hot raspberry, is too invasive for my liking. I prefer the blue shade and the lilac shade. More subdued in both color and aggressiveness, they are just invasive enough to help me in a couple of trouble areas. A challenge of my young garden is to disguise bare spots. I'm impatient and I want my problems solved NOW!! Tradescantia was up to the task of meeting two challenges. The first picture shows a mulched area over a drainpipe. It left me with a large, unattractive spot where I couldn't dig holes because the pipe was so close to the surface. Thank you, Tradescantia. The roots are so shallow that they took well in the not-so-generous 3" of soil they were given on top of the drainpipe. By next year they should fill out nicely. In the second picture the pile of rocks is covering a drain-pipe. A year ago I broke a small clump of tradescantia into twelve or so little sprigs, each having one stem, and planted them in two rows, one on each side of the rocks. In only a year they have made themselves quite at home. I hope by next year they will meet each other in an arch over the rocks. Best of all, both came from my Pittsburgh garden, so the total cost of problem-solving was $0.00!
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