We’ve enjoyed this groundcover manfreda since receiving it from our friends at Yucca Do in 2002. Manfreda ‘Helen Wynans’ was first introduced in the 1950s/1960s by Texas cactus dealer Helen Wynans and subsequently named for her by plantsman Scott Ogden. Scott theorizes it came from the alkaline oak forests along the north Mexican stretch of the Pan-American Highway which opened in the 1950s. In our garden, the habit is very similar to the equally stoloniferous Manfreda jaliscana. Manfreda ‘Helen Wynans’ produces 18″ wide rosettes of rubbery, deeply-channeled leaves that are blotched purple, forming a unique winter-deciduous groundcover in either sun or light shade. The patches are topped with 6′ tall flower spikes in mid-spring.
