Lotus maculatus ‘Yellow’ — silver, needle-fine foliage trailing from baskets, with beaked yellow-orange flowers in spring. Full sun, fast drainage, and often kept as a foliage spiller into June.
Parrot’s beak is grown first for its foliage — soft, silvery, needle-like leaves on stems that trail two feet from a basket or pot rim, like a gray waterfall — and then, in the cool weather of March and April, for the curved, claw-shaped flowers in yellow and orange that give it its name. The flowers stop once nights warm, but the silver foliage stays handsome into early summer as a spiller among calibrachoa and petunias.
We commonly carry ‘Yellow’. Full sun, gritty soil, and let it dry between waterings. Frost-tender. The rest of the color tables are on our Annual Flowers & Foliage page.
This is the parrot’s beak we commonly carry. Availability changes week to week and season to season, so call (480) 987-3308 or stop in to see what’s on the bench today.
Lotus maculatus ‘Yellow’: fine silver-gray trailing foliage to two feet with beaked yellow-and-orange flowers in spring. Plant February–March; foliage lasts into June.
Looking for one that isn’t listed? Ask — we can usually suggest a close match or tell you when it tends to come around.
The care tag was written somewhere else. This is the Queen Creek version.
Set out from mid-February, after frost, through March. It flowers in March and April in cool weather and holds its silver foliage into June, when heat and humidity finish it. A fall planting in October gives foliage through winter with cover on frost nights.
A gritty, fast-draining potting mix and a pot or basket with a hole. Water when the top inch is dry — every two to three days in spring, daily in a basket by May — and never leave it wet; it rots in soggy mix and dislikes humidity. Water at the base rather than over the foliage.
Plant it at the rim of a 12-inch or larger pot or basket where the stems can hang free, three plants around a large container. It combines with anything — the silver is the point.
Full sun for the silveriest foliage and the most flowers. Afternoon shade from May helps it last; in shade the stems stretch and green up.
A balanced fertilizer at half strength every three weeks. It is not a heavy feeder; too much nitrogen softens the foliage.
Spider mites in heat; hose the foliage. Frost blackens it. Non-toxic to cats and dogs.
Snap a photo of the spot — sun direction, wall color, pot size — and we’ll pick a season-correct combination with you. Advice is free.
Annuals succeed or fail on what’s under them. We stock planting mix and compost for beds, potting mix for containers, bloom fertilizers including Tony’s Magic Mix and Magic Flower, starter fertilizer, drip fittings and frost cloth for the cold nights. The pottery yard has glazed and terracotta pots from 4-inch to whiskey-barrel size, window boxes and hanging baskets, and soil and mulch is sold by the bag or by the yard.
Parrot’s beak flowers only in cool weather with cool nights — March and April here. Once nights warm it stops and becomes a foliage plant.
When the top inch is dry, every two to three days in spring and daily in baskets by May. It rots if kept wet.
Yes, and it prefers it in spring; afternoon shade from May helps it last into June.
Rarely — heat and monsoon humidity finish it by July. Treat it as spring color and foliage.
Not the water lotus — it is Lotus maculatus, a small trailing legume from the Canary Islands.
Yes, non-toxic to cats and dogs.
Parrot’s Beak live on the annuals tables; any staff member can point you to them. Locally owned, and a short drive from San Tan Valley, Gilbert, Chandler and Mesa.