Plant Cinquefoil – At Pot Depth

Plant cinquefoil in spring or fall, at the same depth as the pot, with room for a 2- to 4-foot mound.

Plant in spring or fall, at the same depth as the pot

Set the crown even with the surrounding soil, or a little high in clay. Burying it invites rot. Give a mature mound room — these are 2- to 4-foot shrubs. [1] Goldfinger and Nepalese cinquefoil take that same crown-high set. A marsh kind does not — that plant goes at the waterline below.

How to plant cinquefoil

Plant one nursery plant at a time in spring or fall, with the crown at grade, then water to settle.

1. Wait until spring after frost, or plant in early fall while the soil is still workable. [2]
2. Dig a hole as deep as the root ball and about twice as wide. Tease circling roots.
3. Set the ball at the same depth as the nursery pot. Leave the crown even with the soil, or slightly above it in clay. [3]
4. Backfill with the soil you dug, firm, and water in. Do not load the hole with fertilizer.
5. Space shrubs about 2 to 4 feet apart, measured to the mature spread. After that, first-season water sits on How to Grow Cinquefoil.

Set marsh cinquefoil at the waterline, in a basket

marsh cinquefoil is a pond-margin plant. It wants wet ground, not the drain hole the shrubs use.

1. Use an aquatic basket or planting bag so the rhizomes do not run the whole shelf.
2. Set the crown about 2 to 6 inches below the water surface, in the shallows, not in deep water. [4]
3. Keep the mix wet. If the soil dries, the plant fails.
4. Do not put a Goldfinger shrub in that basket. The drain shrub rots there.

If you buried the crown in wet clay, lift it now and reset it at grade — do not wait for a soft stem.