A choice little Turkish wallflower forming a dense, evergreen cushion of narrow, pale green leaves, with compact racemes of bright yellow to golden-orange flowers held just above the foliage. Erysimum kotschyanum is native to the mountains of Türkiye, where it grows in dry, open, rocky habitats. It remains remarkably compact in cultivation, making it particularly well suited to the rock garden, trough, or alpine house.
This is an excellent plant for a dry limestone or gravel garden, thriving in full sun and sharply drained, alkaline or neutral soil. Its evergreen cushion provides interest through winter, while the summer flowers add a bright splash of yellow. Keep it on the dry side, particularly in winter, as excellent drainage is important for maintaining a compact, long-lived plant. Hardy to roughly USDA Zone 7; in particularly wet winter climates, excellent drainage is more important than absolute cold tolerance. It has been long lived in the Pacific NW.
The specific epithet kotschyanum commemorates Carl Georg Theodor Kotschy (1813–1866), the Austrian botanist and explorer. Kotschy spent much of his career exploring the Middle East and North Africa, making extensive botanical collections in places including Türkiye, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and Cyprus. He collected an extraordinary number of specimens—Harvard's Index of Botanists records more than 300,000 specimens—no wonder you see his name on so many great rock garden plants and flower bulbs!. His collections from the mountains of the Near East were particularly important to nineteenth-century knowledge of the region's flora.
A choice little Turkish wallflower forming a dense, evergreen cushion of narrow, pale green leaves, with compact racemes of bright yellow to golden-orange flowers held just above the foliage. Erysimum kotschyanum is native to the mountains of Türkiye, where it grows in dry, open, rocky habitats. It remains remarkably compact in cultivation, making it particularly well suited to the rock garden, trough, or alpine house.
This is an excellent plant for a dry limestone or gravel garden, thriving in full sun and sharply drained, alkaline or neutral soil. Its evergreen cushion provides interest through winter, while the summer flowers add a bright splash of yellow. Keep it on the dry side, particularly in winter, as excellent drainage is important for maintaining a compact, long-lived plant. Hardy to roughly USDA Zone 7; in particularly wet winter climates, excellent drainage is more important than absolute cold tolerance. It has been long lived in the Pacific NW.
The specific epithet kotschyanum commemorates Carl Georg Theodor Kotschy (1813–1866), the Austrian botanist and explorer. Kotschy spent much of his career exploring the Middle East and North Africa, making extensive botanical collections in places including Türkiye, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and Cyprus. He collected an extraordinary number of specimens—Harvard's Index of Botanists records more than 300,000 specimens—no wonder you see his name on so many great rock garden plants and flower bulbs!. His collections from the mountains of the Near East were particularly important to nineteenth-century knowledge of the region's flora.
