13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Here's a few that have really impressed me. Surprisingly, the majority are roses considering I'm not particularly a 'rose gardener.'
Verbena 'Homestead Purple' (planted 2014). Very reliable and very pretty.
Oh So Easy Paprika (Chewmaytime) shub rose (planted late spring 2015) - Grows just 1-2 feet tall and wide with perfectly unblemished tiny leaves and small single flowers that open spicy orange with a yellow center, fading to coral, then yellow before neatly dropping off if not deadheaded before then. Blooms are truly non-stop. All this despite our horribly wet spring and unsufferable hot summer. A perfect edging plant. I only purchased one plant to see how it did. Now I wish I would have planted more. I'm planning to get two more this fall.
Julia Child rose (planted late spring 2015) - I got 2 and they are too young to have reached their mature 3 ft height yet, but they have filled out consistently well and have been blooming like crazy ever since their first flush, even when temps have hovered around 100 degrees this week. The roses are a very pleasing yellow and very full. Very healthy foliage, too.
Easy Does It rose - (planted summer 2014). A floribunda with peachy-coral flowers. A real beauty at its first spring flush, and keeps blooming on and off til frost after that. No disease worries at all.
Aquilegia 'Irish Elegance' (planted spring of 2014) - gorgeous frilly white flowers. Elegant. Carefree.
Aquilegia Origami Blue and White. (Planted this spring). Got 2 of these on a whim locally. They claim they re-bloom throughout the summer but I was skeptical about that here, as hot as we get. I was surprised to find they actually did bloom again, and are still in bloom even now, and it's August 7 today and 102 degrees.
I would have expected to include euphorbia 'Bonfire' on my list because it has looked great since planting last year, but just a couple of weeks ago it started flopping out from the center and one of them is shriveling up and appears to be dying, although there's new buds growing at its base. I'm sick about this. Maybe too much rain?
I bought campanula Sarastro this year and have been very happy with this one. It bloomed non stop for most of the spring and summer. It's not blooming now, but I'm hoping to see another flush. Gaura Belleza, bought this spring. It's looked great all spri g and summer blooming almost continuously. I just hope it will overwinter for me.
Carnival Watermelon Heuchera, planted this last year and it has been growing well and the colors are lovely. Bought these for $4 at Walmart, what a great buy!Limelight and Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangeas. I planted both of these midsummer last year. Both are blooming well and are so easy care. I will be adding more paniculatas to my yard. They are such reliable bloomers compared to many other hydrangeas.
My last favorite is Royal Jubilee Rose. This was planted last year. It has really shaped up into a great shrub rose. Last year I wasn't too impressed but this year it has been performing well. Most of my other roses have blackspot and insect damage, this one has a little insect damage, but not much, and the blooms are gorgeous! It's starting it's second flush now.
Colocasia "Black Coral" looks very similar to C. "Diamond Head" - both with glossy near black foliage, more attractive to me than the dull-leafed "Black Magic". My favorite elephant ear in 2012 was "Coffee Cups", which is fun to watch during rain as the leaves fill up with water and then dip down to drain it out.
Best tropical accent for me was variegated tapioca (Manihot esculenta "Variegata") which after a couple of failed tries at keeping and propagating small plants over the winter, finally yielded success this time out as I grew several plants to nearly 6 feet (seen here backed by Canna "Australia"):
Musa basjoo benefited from a mild winter, growing to nearly 13 feet:
I just started a Youtube channel that will be dedicated to gardening! My first episode was on my Tropical Garden in Chicago! I would be absolutely honored if you all would check it out and like and subscribe! Enjoy!
Hmmm...
Bluestem grows everywhere at my house... Mulch or no mulch...
I'm sure it does but I like the way it looks best when its growing in very dry soil and I'm not planning to go run out and buy mulch to keep the ground moist around here. Most websites that sell it instruct not to mulch around the plants, I assumed it was to prevent rot at the base although I haven't had any problems except in the way they look growing too moist, it lodges when the soil is perpetually moist & I don't want to encourage that.
You have already bought them, right? What I tend to do is sit the pots out in the garden and move them around until I like the way everything looks, keeping in mind mature sizes. As far as your colors, it sounds like they will all look quite lovely together! Be sure to mix up leaf sizes, shapes, textures since you don't want all the same stuff in the same area as it gets to look boring. More interesting to vary all that. I have ended up needing to move some things that ended up too tall in front or just not playing well with the group. :-)
Aaaannd you could always put the pots out and take a picture for us to critique! ha. We do love pictures.
As bad as yalls problem sounds... I've been following a thread on another forum... Where the OP has been watering 3-4 times a day! He's complaining bout the well goin dry...
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=402088
The reasons given for avoiding all that watering are good, but the alternatives kinda lead to other problems.
I tell everyone that any plant they can not name... Is NOT a weed, but it doesn't help... They get in the zone... Pull out rare plants I brought them...
Deadheading should be avoided by bird lovers, and anyone that wants to share plants... It's simply a bad idea.
You have me curious, what rare plants are they ripping out? I'll have to check that thread out.
I don't do much deadheading myself, just a bit of neatening up or thinning when necessary to keep it attractive. We don't get much snow here so I've got a 4 seasons of interest garden and I want the texture of the seed pods in winter contrasting with the dried grasses and they attract winter birds. Its gotten to the point that I find myself thinking more of winter interest than spring flowers when it comes to plant choices & look forward to fall as my favorite garden season. It would be an understatement to say I've become a bit obsessive with native grasses these days, We are coming into the best time of year for them and I find myself continually looking out the window to admire them or just walking about especially when the wind is blowing. A positive result -- watering is just about down to zip & that is a big relief because its such a loosing battle down here this time of year when it gets so hot and dry for so long. Its good for the grasses, they flop if its too wet or cool. Maybe that's because it was supposed to be prairie all along?
I hadn't noticed how old the thread is either, I was too busy getting blinded by the caustic remark. No wonder the OP is MIA. Still its an interesting subject about pollinators. Many people want to attract them & considering the ecological benefits and loss of native habitat any efforts in this direction is a small way of creating island habitat area to help preserve native plant species and beneficial insects.
The city where I live is depressingly full of dead zones. Deserts of bermuda or fescue lawns, ground cover plants, non flowering clipped hedges and shrubs, hybrid plants and too many trees creating too much shade where nothing much grows underneath. Once upon a time it was vast prairie teaming with wildlife and hardly a tree in sight.
If you want to start a new bed with plants, use the plants that you thin in late winter/early spring, not the ones you take out for rejuvenation. For one thing, it's really too late in the season for those plants to establish well. And when you rejuvenate, you take out everything in that year's rotation. New runners will fill up the empty areas, and the whole bed will then be thinned the following late winter/early spring.
Well, it doesn't really make sense for the mites to cause the problem, but it was just interesting that a photo on the first site when I googled came up had the black edges. It has been rainy in many places this year, and so a lot of plants are struggling. Struggling plants get more pests and diseases, that's the way it works, so maybe it would be good to look at other factors and try to get those under control, to move on towards eventually getting the mites under control. It all goes together. Kind of hard to manipulate the rain, though. At least it's dried up here. I agree a whole plant shot would be good to see, if OP is still around.
Currently, having eliminated all infested coneflowers from our garden and having reduced (but not stopped) purchasing coneflowers, I now find no trace of coneflower rosette mite on our purple coneflowers. It seems quite odd, since running up to and culminating in 2013, we had, for several years, a growing coneflower rosette mite problem in our garden.
With infested plants, I went beyond removing damaged flowers, rather getting rid of the whole plants. I'm also a firm believer (at least with my style of closely planted and maintained mixed perennial) in cutting down perennials and removing all plant debris from the soil surface before our winter freezing.
The past rapid growth of Echinacea sales has been mentioned, as have the subsequent recommendations within the horticultural business to get a handle on the problem of coneflower rosette mite. Perhaps with growers and retailers (at least those supplying our area) eliminating plants which show any sign of the mite infestation and with my own past similar action, I'm going to feel quite quite comfortable with Echinacea in our garden again. They're such a useful summer plant. Nevermore's lovely garden shows how attractive they are.
Sorry, probably doesn't help, Aseedisapromis, but the only Heliopsis (false sunflower) problem we've had is the red aphids on the growing tip one time (was handled successfully with very heavy pruning).
Well, I am going to replace the Heliopsis entirely, or at least cut back their numbers, since that is easy to do from seed as they aren't any special cultivar. I may move them as well, to a place with a bit more sun. The coneflowers replace themselves, or I replace them from seed. My aphids appear around this time and they are school bus yellow and on the growing tips of my first year Asclepias incarnata this year. Almost visually attractive. All the water makes for lots and lots of bugs around here.
Pulmonaria (lungwort), Pachysandra, FERNS (any species), Japanese forest grass, Columbines, Hellebores, Spirea, clumping bamboo, liriope, and rhododendron. Hollies are also deer resistant but want some sun. I like inkberry holly and Japanese Holly (Ilex crenate), then there are the blue hollies. Japanese plum yew (Cephalotaxus) is deer resistant (but you may be one zone too cold for it. There is also Osmanthus heterophyllus 'goshiki' (False Holly), and the boxwood which you already have. Carex may work for you. Just discovered these grasses and love the look.
That's what I have in either shade or dappled shade for the deer challenge (which I am sure I have more of than you!...LOL)
If I think of more, I will add to the list.
Have a great evening!
scsig, You might check around your area to see what a load of topsoil would cost, its sold by the ton here. We brought in a very large load of river bottom topsoil and another of coarse sand, sand is cheaper than soil but delivery is another part of the cost. Its not all that expensive here and was well worth it in the long run. We built up some planting areas into nice softly sloping rounded mounds. It adds interest to an otherwise flat area and if you really want to add a feature, you could consider a few well placed large rocks maybe to plant around. It was cheaper to buy by the ton than it would have been to purchase bags at Home Depot. You need a wheel barrow, they will dump it in a pile. Its just like those piles you see of sand they bring in when new housing additions are going in. If you are into gardening you could widen the area while you are at it but some people just want a nice entrance deal.
After only a year, the evergreens are probably still moveable if you do it during cool weather.
I agree with aseedisapromise - my favorite and most indispensable garden tool is an old chefs knife. Good for removing deep rooted weeds, good for dividing or cutting through roots, good for disemboweling slugs, good for planting small starts or digging up seedlings. Next to my Felcos, hand rake and three pronged cultivator, this tool is always in my go everywhere garden basket (together with gloves, stretchy tying tape and cheap scissors).
Thank you all. The variety in question is Bridal Veil. I found a buried tag when I was digging them out. White or red works for my color schemes in general.
I have a group of lilac ones in another bed. They were bought bare root in a big box. They were supposed to be red, but all are lilac. Maybe those are chinensis pumila. They don’t bloom much if at all either, but they have tremendous root competition for water and space.
I have a morning sun spot in another bed. It’s full shade after noon. I’ll try moving the Bridal Veil there. That's a good idea about the compost. I'll try that. I have only ever top dressed with compost. I've been afraid of burning the plants. It's bagged compost.
Last fall I moved three 'Bridal Veil' to the north side of the house. It gets some morning light with shade the rest of the time. This year with weekly rains only the one closest to the house has needed watering. Good bloom which is just started fading.
I too like very much frikartii Monch. For the first time I trimmed it back earlier this summer to minimize its flop. It is just starting to bloom for me now.
Marlorena, I love that picture of 'orientale'.
rouge..thanks.. .. I love Pennisetum's although I know they're not that hardy in northern zones...
...fortunately my 'Monch' doesn't flop... but I think I'm right in saying that there are a number of clones doing the rounds that masquerade as 'Monch' that do flop.... so we never know which we've got until they grow...
laceyvail, I've never heard of 'Pardancanda', so I got to go look that up...