Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
pam_whitbyon

Trollius questions

pam_whitbyon
10 years ago

This is the only orange flower I have, and I just LOVE IT. So bright and cheery. This trollius is about 4 years old now, and never gets bushier but flowers sparsely on stalks that are about 3 feet high. I would love the plant to get bigger but it's never changed. This year for the first time, another trollius has sprung up, about 4 feet away from this one, through cracks in the pavement! Has that happened from seedlings? Can I "pull" it out and plant it next to the other one to make a bushier plant? It's coming up through interlocking pavement though, so that might be tricky. This seedling, if that's what it is, is almost as bushy as the original 4 year old plant.

{{gwi:231381}}

Comments (20)

  • ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
    10 years ago

    hey... at 3 to 4 years... it is, what it is... and hoping for more.. isnt going to get you more.. lol ..

    if the babe is in a crack... its obviously not a runner ...

    but.. as with any seedlings... who knows if it will be exactly like momma ...

    if you can get it out.. go for it.. but dont be surprised if its a bit different in some way ...

    unless someone comes along..and can affirmatively state.. it come 'true from seed'.... that is actually what you are wondering ....

    good luck

    ken

  • wieslaw59
    10 years ago

    Trollius chinensis Golden Queen is a seed strain. Like all trollius, it loves moisture, moisture,moisture and moisture. In dry and warm situation it will get smaller and smaller, eventually disappearing

  • christinmk z5b eastern WA
    10 years ago

    Trollius chinensis isn't a terribly bushy plant in general I find. It is more upright by nature. I've had mine in dry-ish conditions before and it seems to do okay, surprisingly enough.

    I wouldn't go to all the trouble of digging up the seeding. If you let your plant go to seed this year and collect/sow more you will have a ton more plants. The winter sowing method is very easy, although I find my Golden Queen reseeds well on its own...
    CMK

  • Karchita
    10 years ago

    Yes, I agree, it's probably a seedling. I've grown this plant for over 25 years, and it's one of my favorites. It is the only orange flower in my garden, too. I can't understand why people always say it needs water because I have never, in 25 years, given mine any extra. They may tolerate a lot of moisture, but I certainly have never found that they require it. They do extremely well with regular water, rich soil, cool climates (in my experience), and some fertilizer every spring to keep it vigorous. They will never become huge bushes, but are more the sort to weave through other plants or groupings of 3-5 plants can give a bushy effect.

    You can divide them, but they take a while to recover from it or from transplanting.

  • miclino
    10 years ago

    Transplanted my trollius in May and it flowered June without missing a beat! Great plant. Would be great if it got bigger but no such luck

  • wieslaw59
    10 years ago

    Quote:
    "I can't understand why people always say it needs water because I have never, in 25 years, given mine any extra."

    They say it needs water because it does. Perhaps you live in a place where there is enough water in the soil/from the sky? Maybe you should try to give it extra water ? Perhaps you would be surprised? I have met people like that before, who claimed they grew theirs in dry conditions. What I saw was a pitiful one foot tall three stems with flowers you needed a magnifying glass to see. When they saw mine 80X80 cm clumps with flowers like Granny Smith apples, they fainted. They were not aware that they were supposed to look like that.

    Majority of European and Siberian species are growing naturally ONLY in wet meadows. While T.chinensis are perhaps slightly more tolerant of drier conditions, they are definitely not afraid of water. They are not wimpy things weaving through other plants. They get just as bushy as other trollius.

    This post was edited by wieslaw59 on Mon, Jun 24, 13 at 11:26

  • donna_in_sask
    10 years ago

    I have two plants, one located near a downspout and another by a low lying spot - so both get lots of water and they like it that way.

  • Karchita
    10 years ago

    "They say it needs water because it does."

    As I said, this is not true in my 25+ years of experience with this plant. Maybe you didn't know that the Seattle area gets almost no rain from mid July to late September. Yes, I have tried giving it tons of extra water, but that was a waste of water as it hasn't made any difference. I have also tried not giving them any water and just letting them die out when they finish blooming and our dry season arrives here, but they did decline when I did that. They need regular water, as I said, but not any more than the rest of my perennial beds.

    Trollius grow slowly and reach a maximum size of about 2-3 feet wide and three feet tall with plenty of large flowers. It is when they are young that they are weavers and look better in clumps, to my eye. Mature clumps can be impressive, large, stand alone plants, that is true, but it can take many years for them to get that large. I would not call my plants wimpy in the least; they are vigorous, well grown plants, but trollius will never be a monster that spreads and spreads and needs dividing every few years. It tolerates wet conditions, as it does dry ones. I understand that it grows in wet conditions in its native habitat. However, in the garden, IME, it requires rich soil and at least some annual fertilizer. Maybe in a hot climate it needs extra water, but it is both unfair and inaccurate to label this lovely plant as one that NEEDS lots of water.

  • miclino
    10 years ago

    wieslaw, would like to see a pic of your trollius clump. I might be tempted to pamper mine if it can get that big.

  • docmom_gw
    10 years ago

    Karchita,
    Thank you for sharing your valuable experience. It helps those of us who have not grown this plant to know that it can tolerate a variety of conditions.

    Martha

  • pam_whitbyon
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    Mine is growing in a contained area where there's a downspout so it gets a fair amount of water, really. Now, the seedling is a different story, growing up between two paving stones, it gets hardly any water. Both plants look around the same, so it does appear to be quite tolerant of both those conditions!

    Thanks everyone for the input :)

  • gardenweed_z6a
    10 years ago

    Jury is still sort of out on the trollius I grew from seed via the winter sowing method a few years ago. They came up in Y2 and bloomed but of those I planted out back then only one appears to have returned this year and it didn't bloom. I enjoyed the first year's cheerful early-season blooms but if it's as unreliable as gaura, won't trouble myself to keep trying to grow it in future years. Anything I grow & plant must thrive on neglect or be forgotten, whilst repeat performers are very much appreciated.

    According to one of my perennials books, it prefers rich, moist or even boggy soil in full sun. That might explain its indifference to my slightly alkaline sandy loam that's required to depend on Mother Nature for irrigation.

    As an added note, I first saw it growing in my ND neighbor's garden several years ago. His plants have long since been history.

  • wieslaw59
    10 years ago

    OK. It was spelled out in one of the posts, that I'm too stupid to find out whether my plants lack water or not. Somebody from the staff has removed MY! posts in such a way , that it still looks like it, not leaving a note how I can complain about it and about whom. It's a strange sense of justice you have over there. So I have to repeat : I can find out whether my plants lack water or not (In case somebody have doubts)

    Miclino,
    I do not have such big clumps as in my old clay garden, so you'll have to do with a smaller one(I'm in a process of rebuilding my collection)

    {{gwi:231382}}

    {{gwi:231383}}

    {{gwi:231384}}

    {{gwi:231385}}

  • north53 Z2b MB
    10 years ago

    So now that I'm convinced that I should move my trollius to a moister location, when should I do it? What kind of root does it have? It is just coming into bud now, so I won't even think about touching it. Just wondering if I have to wait until next spring.
    Thanks.

  • prairiemoon2 z6b MA
    10 years ago

    wieslaw59, what happened to 'let's just drop it'?

    If you still need to defend your position about whether trollius need moisture or not, please do so without any further personal comments.

  • a2zmom_Z6_NJ
    10 years ago

    For those of you who are growing it, do you grow it in full sun, part sun or shade? I have spots in all three of those light sitiations. The shade is pretty shady - a Japanese red maple is nearby.

  • Loretta NJ Z6
    7 years ago

    That's a beautiful plant, wieslaw59.

  • sunnyborders
    7 years ago

    Have a great respect for Wieslaw. The pictures of his beautiful garden speak so eloquently of his gardening skills.

    Love Trollius 'Golden Queen' with it's big golden-orange flowers. I find that it is its excellent behaviour in a mixed perennial bed (e.g. slow clump forming habit) that make it such a low maintenance plant.


  • Campanula UK Z8
    7 years ago

    Annoyingly, I find trollius ledebourii (Golden Queen) to be the only reliable globeflower as it does need moisture...but not as much, or as consistently as T x cultorum or the straight native species, T.europaeus - both of which are a fleeting one season wonder in my dry garden conditions...and are also my favourites.

    As for the ones which grow in cracks in the pavement - this used to baffle me until my second career as a landscaper. Having lifted many hundreds of garden paviours, setts and slabs (laid on beds of aggregate - not cemented in place), it astonishes me that the conditions below these slabs remains eternally cool and damp - the exact conditions for the likes of globeflowers - and other ranunculous members, most notoriously, clematis.