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| I am wondering how little sunlight does it take for Salvia nemorosa or Walker Low Catmint to do well? Obviously full sun is best, but what if you get about 4 hours of sun from roughly noon to afternoon. Is that not enough?
What would you grow in 4 hours of intense sun for 5 hours? Thanks Paul |
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- Posted by gardenweed_z6a 5b/6a N CT (My Page) on Fri, Oct 14, 11 at 18:18
| I'd look for things than can tolerate part sun as opposed to requiring 6-8 hours of full sun. I've learned I don't have as much full sun where I am as there was when I was a kid growing up here. Trees have grown taller and there's a whole lot more shade than sun. Where there is full sun, it's a low area that warms later in the season than other parts of the garden. I wasn't about to let so much shade keep me from growing butterfly & hummingbird magnet plants so I've got quite a few full sun perennials growing in less than full sun. Echinacea, rudbeckia, penstemon, coreopsis, balloon flower, turtlehead, butterfly bush, Shasta daisy among others do well but the jury is still out on whether they produce fewer blooms growing where they are versus what they'd have in more sun. I have meadow sage/salvia that does okay but I've seen the same plants in full sun bloom for endless months during the summer where I get a brief display of flowers. Nepeta 'Walkers Low' is new for me this year so I can't say it does better or worse than other folks' plants. There's hands down no comparison with Montauk daisy growing in full sun and my puny handful of blooms in part sun. I have Baptisia australis/false indigo in part sun that are gorgeous but the plants that get several more hours of sun per day produce twice or three times the number of blooms as the part sun plants. I'm experimenting and pushing the envelope on some things just to see how they perform in my garden as opposed to the "ideal" growing conditions. With winter sowing, I can grow them from seed rather than purchase at a nursery and hope they thrive. |
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| I have had catmint is less than optimal sun previously, and it did fine. Became rather sprawly post flowering, which it tends to do regardless of sun exposure (nothing a good mid-season whack-back won't fix...) and still bloomed very nicely. IIRC, was probably closer to 6 hours sun, though. |
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| They both bloom well for me here in part sun, especially the cat mint. The main thing for both of these plants is very well drained soil and less watering in less sun. Don't know what your planting area is like, but if you can raise the soil level and plant them high they should do fine. |
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