Acalypha pendula
Dwarf Chenille Plant
- Type
- Groundcover
- Hardiness
- USDA Zones 8–10
- Sun
- Full Sun, Part Shade
- Soil
- Moist, Well-drained
- Mature size
- Height 1–2 Feet · Spread 2–3 Feet
- Growth rate
- Fast
- Seasonality
- Dies back, depends on zone
This variety is no actively in production in our propagation house and may not return to our catalogue. We maintain this page purely for reference and archival purposes. If you would like to grow this plant, tell us. Your interest helps guide what we bring back.
For a larger installation or commercial project, write hello@woodlanders.net.
Acalypha pendula is a trailing, mat-forming little shrub grown for its curious flowers: soft, fuzzy, crimson catkins, three to four inches long, that hang like miniature chenille tails or a cat's tail among small green leaves. It is a dwarf cousin of the familiar chenille plant, and is sold under the common names dwarf chenille, firetail, and strawberry firetails.
The species is native to the West Indies, to Cuba and the island of Hispaniola, and it carries the tropics in its constitution: it revels in heat, rich soil, and ample water, and flowers more or less continuously through a warm summer. In frost-free gardens it makes a fine evergreen groundcover or spills from a hanging basket; farther north it is grown as a tender perennial or summer annual.
Where winters are marginal it can be coaxed through the cold. Cut the plants back after frost kills the tops, mound about ten inches of coarse sand over the stubs, and mulch over that with pine straw. As the weather warms, draw the covering away to let new shoots emerge. Given rich soil and steady moisture, the plants return to thrive through the next hot summer.
Fuzzy crimson chenille-like catkins, 3 to 4 inches long