Turtlehead needs all the support it can get

Finally, it flowered. Chelone is a slow one, slow like a turtle, taking its time to flower, an almost fall flowering perennial. The name comes from the Greek word for turtle because the flowers are thought to resemble the head of a turtle — with its mouth open. The botanical name is Chelone oblique.

Oblique, the species name, is apt given what happened to my plant. It’s been growing steadily since spring, looking mostly like a plain green shrub until it began to show the first flowers in late August. It isn’t what I’d call a featured plant in my garden. It occupies a spot in semi shade beneath a sumac. Not an ideal location for anything, but it was there before the sumac and continues to do a good job of holding the space like a seat filler at the Oscars. It’s kept in check there, not that it’s an invasive plant — just large.

Turtlehead is a clump-forming perennial with multiple stems close to a metre high — and, last week, almost a couple of metres across. It’s not supposed to behave that way. After a dry spell, it kind of flopped a bit. That’s my fault for not providing support for it. Late August is the time, only a short time, when I’m paying less attention to what’s going on in the garden. Most things have flowered and the poor old chelone somehow gets ignored.

I would have supported it back in spring before it began to fill out, except I tend not to notice as it’s a late riser when other plants are clamouring for attention. Trying now to corral all the stems after they’ve all flopped can be futile. Some break, I miss a few, or I somehow manage to include other plants — or one of my legs.

I should use the trick I once saw used in a long, congested perennial border in a large public garden in England. Rather than trying to tie up the plants with twine or metal rings, the gardeners there had inserted a number of large twigs or sticks in and around the plant. As the plant grew, the supporting sticks did the job, hidden in foliage.

Ideally, I’d be growing chelone in conditions it loves — organically rich, consistently moist, even wet soil. In the wild it grows happily along river edges and in swamps, yet can tolerate dry conditions for a short time. This makes it suitable for a rain garden or any poorly drained site in sun or part shade. In the right soil, the stems are less likely to scatter.

The flowers, clustered around the top of the stems, are mostly pink with a little pale-yellow beard inside the turtle mouth. Always prepared to supplement with miscellaneous facts, I was happy to learn (thanks to Google) that a cluster or group of turtles is called a bale or a dule.

This species is a native North American plant found in the Midwest and Eastern U.S. and from Florida north to Minnesota. It isn’t noted as an Ontario native, although there is another species, Chelone glabra (white turtlehead), listed as having a range extending into Ontario, east to Newfoundland and Labrador, and west to Manitoba. These low-maintenance plants are disease- and deer resistant, and they’re attractive to hummingbirds as a timely food source when they’re preparing to head south.

There are a few turtlehead cultivars, including ‘Hot Lips,’ which has shiny green leaves and rosy pink flowers, and ‘Tiny Tortuga,’ a dwarf variety that only reaches knee height.

Tortuga is the Spanish name for turtle — who’d have thought?

Turtlehead, a much prettier flower than the name suggests.

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