Also known as double lady’s smock, this charming perennial is a double-flowered form of the native cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis), found across Europe and western Asia. It thrives in moist, humus-rich soil and prefers partial shade, making it ideal for damp meadows, stream edges, or woodland gardens. Its delicate, pale lilac-pink double blooms appear in spring, adding soft color early in the season. It is a low-maintenance plant that naturalizes well in suitable conditions. Deer resistant and attractive to pollinators.

Anyone who has visited the nursery and rock garden knows we don’t have a ton of shade, but one of my favorite things are ferns, and with the little bit of shade we do have I have this lovely cuckoo flower drifting between the ferns on the shady bank. They spread a bit every year and if you aren’t careful in id could certainly confuse the out of flower rosettes for the common shot weed that is so prevalent in Oregon gardens, but in the spring the flower stalks start to shoot up revealing sprays of double lilac-pink flowers so bright and delightful in the shade of the flowering plums. I always wondered about the eytmolgy and it turns out the cuckoos come back to European meadows about the time this blooms, much like our Western Trilliums are Wake Robins for the return in the spring.

Hardy to USDA Zone 4 (approx. -30°C / -20°F),