I'll go first:
I have a lot of Asters, Boltonia and Mums as I love fall color. This year I went ahead and pinched all of those plants except a few probably 3-4 times before July 4th. I now regret it.

The numerous pinching worked great on my shorter asters like Woods Blue, but the taller species are now so engulfed in blooms that they are too top heavy and flop not aesthetically. The ones I left with no pinching look great, very sparse branches and more natural. I may sound crazy saying that I don't like so many blooms, but it just doesn't look right to me in the landscape.

My taste is to planting perennials close and getting continuous and changing colour from early spring to late fall; obviously, labour intensive, not so cheap and a bit of a juggling act.

In our location, asters (especially New England asters) and fall monkshood are my favourite fall plants. The best hardy mum, I have, is 'Mei Kyo', but it blooms infuriatingly late.

By fall, the garden has risen from the low plants of spring to the tall plants of fall, with a large amount of cutting back and progressively more staking.

For me, tall mauve, purple and pink garden New England asters (vigorous No Names bought twenty years ago) provide the height (with Arend's monkshood), 'Purple Dome' is the shortie, and there'd always be lots of magenta 'Alma Poetschke' in between.

Got to also give credit, though, to the phlox still in bloom, and some other real stalwarts, also still in bloom, like Geranium 'Rozanne' and various perennials with variegated leaves.

This works for me (usually!).
And there's always next year, if it doesn't.

But I thought one consequence of pinching was to reduce the height of the plant so at the time of bloom there is less 'flop'.

I let my neighbor put about a dozen bags of leaves out by the curb for trash pickup. They were even nicely mulched by the mower. I could have really used them around the garden and in the compost but felt silly taking his trash. This year I'll have to man up and just ask for them.

I'm continuing to let a campanula spread throughout one of my beds. I don't know how I'm ever going to get all the little roots out and I kind of look forward to the big patches of purple. But I did get rid of the three other patches that sprang up this summer.

heh heh... 25 crowns of asparagus :)

Several of the garden ones are spreaders and also very difficult to eliminate from a perennial bed.

In my experience, Campanula punctata (Spotted) is the worst. The related C. takesimana (Korean) is supposed to not be so invasive, but I'm suspicious of that one too.

A few months ago, I decided to attempt to plant under our Norway Maple as it take a full corner of my small lot. I put in a few things, lost a few small things, but realized that bigger plants usually held their own. The hydrangeas and big hostas even flowered. So last week I came across a Brunnera and it was large and, although expensive, I figured if everything else is doing okay, I will stick this in there and see how it does.

Well, this morning I had the pleasure of digging up the now leafless Brunerra and transplanting it. Now I will have to baby it in an attempt to get it to come back in the spring.

Lesson learned - do not put anything expensive that you really want to keep around under a maple

Now I don't want to scare anyone but here is a picture from this past June of my clustered bellfower (Campanula glomerata) just starting to open:

I've used quite a few different campanulas too.
But digging out delicate soft white branching root systems (from the same plant, over several years!) drives me straight up the wall.

I may have disliked goutweed (bishop's weed) more, but I knew enough to never plant that one anywhere near a perennial bed.

rouge21 wrote: But I thought one consequence of pinching was to reduce the height of the plant so at the time of bloom there is less 'flop'.

I found that the size was most noticeable on the shorter varieties. Aggressive pinching worked wonders because it the mounds very compact and flopping or opening up in the middle is non-existent. The larger varieties however only slightly decreased height and because the branching went so crazy up top, the pure weight of it could just not be held up.

Next year, I will definitely trim them all down to about 10 inches in the spring.

Also, I, or the soil it was planted in, managed to kill a two year old Agastache Tutti Fruiti. I loved it so much, as did the bees and hummers, and I am so upset to have lost it. We have clay soil and although it was in amended soil, maybe the lack of drainage down below was too much for it. Maybe I'll try another Agastache from seed and see how it goes.

Linda

- if there is space, I fill in with a plant (even though I do know that other plants nearby will grow to fill in that space)

- for a plant that really catches my fancy I purchase too many of them (see older thread)

Bet, with most of us, that's the norm.
And we can't all be wrong. Can we?

Got a sprinkler system installed this past spring - money VERY WELL SPENT. The beds finally aren't a crispy mess by August and I don't even have to think about watering - except the potted plants...see above.

I haven't gotten around to planting some plants I purchased in August, and I do consider that a "mistake", although really it is a time issue rather than a mistake. I'm debating planting tomorrow, because this season everything is early, all the way from spring onward, we've even had FROST already in my area. I realize frost won't harm hardy perennials and shrubs, but I'm thinking perhaps the hard freezes and temps cold enough to affect soil temp aren't far off this year - normally I'll plant all through October, and I have planted into November in years past with great sucess, but this year does give me pause. Then again, I should just DO IT already because I do have the time tomorrow; otherwise, it just won't get done because of my schedule then I have haul everything in the garage for the winter. BAH!