Rue Anemone
Thalictrum thalictroides
Delicate white-to-pink cups over lacy blue-green leaves in earliest spring, blooming for weeks in cool weather. Gone by late June, a true ephemeral.
Typically 1 pint–1 gal · $9–$30 · final price at pickup
- Thu, Aug 138 AM – 4 PM
- Fri, Aug 148 AM – 4 PM
- Sat, Aug 158 AM – 2 PM
Among the first woodland flowers to open in spring, with a delicacy and brevity that makes each season feel like a gift.
Rue Anemone is a spring ephemeral jewel, one of the earliest flowers to open in the Virginia woodland, often appearing alongside bloodroot and hepatica in late March or early April before most other plants have stirred. The flowers are delicate white or faintly pink cups held above lacy blue-green foliage on wiry four-to-nine-inch stems, and they bloom for weeks if the temperatures stay cool. Up close, the compound leaves look almost like maidenhair fern fronds, with rounded lobes in threes and a soft blue-gray cast that persists after the flowers fade. The whole plant disappears by late June as the woodland canopy closes and the summer drought sets in, a true spring ephemeral. For this reason, plant it among summer-active companions like wild ginger, Solomon's seal, or ferns that will fill the gap. Rue Anemone is ideal for the intimate scale of a woodland path edge or a shaded rock garden, where visitors will stop and crouch down to look at the delicate detail up close.
A nursery-grown plant, ready for the ground.
Healthy, container-grown rue anemone propagated on-site at Hill House from regional genetics. Includes a one-page care card. We make every effort to supply plants as listed; occasionally we substitute a similar species of equal value.
- Sun
- Part shade
- Water
- Average
- Mature size
- 4–9 in · 4–8 in wide
- Bloom time
- Early spring
- Bloom color
- White, Pink
- USDA zones
- 4–8
- Family
- Ranunculaceae
- Native range
- Eastern North America from Ontario south to Florida; rich, moist deciduous woodlands
Care notes for rue anemone.
Part to full shade, moist, rich, humus-rich soil. Goes dormant by midsummer. mark the location so you don't accidentally disturb it. Plant in fall from dormant tubers or in spring from potted plants. Mulch with shredded leaves. Avoid any soil disturbance around dormant plants. Self-seeds slowly in ideal conditions to form small colonies over many years.
Pairs well with these.
Same light, same soil, same wildlife. Janet's picks to plant alongside rue anemone.
Or skip the guesswork.
Curated packages bundle complementary species for an instant habitat. One reservation, one pickup day, a printed layout map.
Short on Space Package
For gardeners who have an abundance of passion but are short on space, this package features tidy, upright, clump-forming natives that behave and function well in small spaces.
Shade Bed Package
Ferns, sedges, and woodland natives that thrive under existing trees.
Birder’s Paradise Package
For the avid bird watchers and budding ornithologists in our community, the Birder’s Paradise Package consists of species that Hill House Nursery staff and longtime native plant advocates such as Doug Tallamy consider ‘premier bird garden plants’.