Tradescantia, Spiderwort, Virginia Spiderwort, Lady's Tears 'Red Cloud'

An aggressive, high-maintenance perennial grown for its long season of bloom.

Individual flowers last only a day, and whi...Read Morele flowering goes on over a long season, the accumulating black deadheads make the inflorescence look ugly within a week. It isn't practical to deadhead each flower individually---you need to cut the stem to the ground. The plant will respond well to cutting back with more stems and often more flowers.

The habit is leggy and sprawling. Plants need cutting back frequently.

This is a tough weedy plant that can spread aggressively by self-sowing. Resistant to glyphosate, and very difficult to dig out completely, as plants can regenerate from small bits of root.

To keep it looking acceptable, this plant requires more work than it's worth, in my opinion. This plant has been heavily promoted far beyond its garden value. It looks like the pictures only briefly, and looks a mess for most of the season. There are too many better garden plants to bother with this one.

Most cultivars are Tradescantia x andersonia, a group of complex hybrids developed from T. virginiana, T. ohioensis, and T. subaspera.

This plant has popped up all over my yard. I thought it was a pretty weed so I collected it several places where it looks lovely. Now, it...Read More is officially a "plant" with a name! LOL I have to say that it doesn't seem to need to be consistently moist. It does as well in my dry shade as in clay hillside. Very hearty and the deer seem to leave it alone. That makes it invaluable in my book.

'Red Cloud' like all the Spiderworts is an easy grow.
A nice red/pink that makes it really stand out against the purple or blues o...Read Moref other T x A's.

What sets it off from 'Pauline' is the very thin strap-like foliage.
This plays well against any other of the T x A's.
The foliage can be a bit weak in a heavy rain though this is not a problem as the clump matures.

My mother gave me several stalks of this 3 years ago. Within the following year it had tripled in size! I finally divided it into thirds ...Read Morethis spring 2004. Each third bloomed in this same season. I would highly recommend this plant as its flowers are never-ending and the plant itself is very hardy. INTERESTING NOTE: The petals of each flower do not fall off as they die. Instead there is an enzyme within the plant that dissolves the flowers!