fireweed
Epilobium angustifolium
RHS Plants for Pollinators
- Growth rate
- Rapid
- Habit
- Erect
- Bloom season
- Summer, autumn
- Bloom color
- Pink, purple
- Foliage color
- Green
- Soil types
- Sand, loam, clay, chalk
- Soil pH
- Circumneutral (pH 6.8-7.2)
Garden uses
Attracts
Notes
Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) is a perennial for borders, pollinator gardens, meadows, and cottage gardens. It is hardy to USDA zone 2, or down to -50°F (-46°C). This plant likes full or part sun and average to moist soil of most types. Tall reddish stems end in tapering spikes of rosy-purple flowers. Butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees visit the blooms. It can become weedy in a garden, so give it room and watch its seedlings.
Pairs well with Cerise Queen yarrow, Red fescue, and Arrowwood viburnum.
Native range
North America, Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, and 35 more places. See all 39
North America, Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, Asia, Africa, Arctic, Aleutian Is., Altay, Amur, Buryatiya, Chita, Corse, Cyprus, District of Columbia, Føroyar, Irkutsk, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Kirgizstan, Krasnoyarsk, Krym, Kuril Is., Magadan, Manchuria, NW. Balkan Pen., New Hampshire, New Jersey, Primorye, Prince Edward I., Qinghai, Québec, Rhode I., Sakhalin, Tadzhikistan, Tuva, Türkiye, Xinjiang, and Yakutiya.