13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

....."end up dong a double-lutz as I walk to my car." Emerogork2, that made me laugh!

I'm going to enjoy autumn as long as possible. I'm still picking lots of tomatoes, the leaves are just started to change colors, and we still have crickets chirping at night. Fall is wonderful.

About winter: It's nice to have four seasons. Winter is a no guilt time of year. Not a weed in sight. Yeah, that's the ticket, winter is a great time of year...... NO! No, it's not! I can't talk myself into this any longer. I'm over it.

The only good thing about winter is that it's followed by SPRING!

I enjoy winter because by late Fall, I am weary of gardening and ready to put it to bed. Winter can be brutal, but I don't have to be out in it and by Spring, I rejoice in the little bleeding hearts poking through and I am anxious to get digging in the soil and planning new plants for the gardens. There is no stopping a gardener, it's in the soul, much like farmers. We rejoice when new plants have survived and anticipate new plants we will discover at the nurseries.

Eupatorium Chocolate is the 'seedingest' perennial i have. It grows any and every where. shade, dry, - no problem. Right up there w/ it is Persicaria Lance Corporal. Same attributes but shorter- corydalis lutea. Man, i could give you truckloads of all 3.

If you do ever come across Rhodotypos in the wild- it is the only shrub (except for wild honeysuckle bush and red wing euonymus) that will grow in my dry shade (where i have tried and lost more things than i care to remember.)
Rhodo....jet beard- is related to kerria i think. white kerria-like flowers; sooo pretty in spring; lots of black berries in fall. Ours came from some nearby woods.
mindy

I have Chocolate that gets only morning sun and it's about a foot and a half tall, has barely increased in size and still is only in bud. In sun, it gets at least three feet tall and clumps get noticably bigger each year. It has never seeded in the many years it's been in the ground, perhaps that's only because it does bloom so late then gets cut down before it has a chance. Although many years it never got cut down till Spring. The foliage on this plant stays reliably pristine throughout the season (mentioned before). I use it in bouquets as a filler with a little Miscanthus thrown in and it lasts well! That is, when I cut flowers...a rarity!

What about a daylily? They're tough as nails and some have especially tall bloom stems. I found one earlier this Summer in one of my borders that was obscured behind an evergreen in the shade and it was blooming its heart out--a deep purplish red with a yellow throat! I divided and moved it front and center in my newly deepened beds.

Hoping you find a solution!

This post was edited by catkin on Sat, Sep 27, 14 at 15:27

I am a bit obsessed with all things ALLIUM ;).

For something a bit different consider those alliums with *yellow* flowers such as OBLIQUUM and MOLY.

Don't neglect fall blooming allium Ozawa..

I planted this last year at this time after getting this suggestion on GW. But I put them on the front edge of a garden which is for all intents and purposes is wild. This border would get "whipper snipped" and most of the time "Ozawa" would get mown down. I dont see any sign of them...my fault.

Louisville, KY. I've had problems with mites this year in general, starting with the roses in May. I think they live in the grass, and the lawn crew blows clippings all over our gardens, which is why I already had the Forbid 4F. I bought the butterfly bush this late because I was busy with school and work, but got a few week's break in late July/early August, which is when I expanded my garden and bought new plants to fill it.

I amended the planting hole because it's solid red clay below 2 inches down. And it was doing okay until the mites. I have some salvia that was also attacked, which I treated the same way as the butterfly bush, but it only improved.

Two points:

Never fertilize a stressed plant.

Butterfly bushes rarely succeed with fall planting in zones 6 and lower.

I found that the trailing branches would root . Good plant in Texas. All the artemisias are. I think our soil and arid weather keep some of the bad ones in semi control. Silver mound on the other hand is too finicky. the heat and humidity turns it to nothingness. I am about ready to plant one of the bad ones. I have given it a hillside.

Again, 'Powys Castle' is not a "slow" runner--it doesn't run at all--it's more of a sub shrub, bushing out from a very small, woody footprint. Winter issues can be settled by giving it the best drainage possible.

There is also A. "Inca Ice", hardy in zone 5. It's been trialed at Walter's Gardens (MI I think?) for a number of years and has proven hardy for them.

Did any GW members in zone 5 get "Inca Ice" to survive this past fierce winter planted in the ground?

Visited the garden of the friend who gave me the alstroemerias- his are growing crazy ! He has them in a protected spot - almost shady - in a low, damp spot. Make mine look starved. Those suckers were popping up all over the yard- of course- his yard is complete mondo grass- the whole acre. Gorgeous garden. Mature & lush.

grosspointe,
I don't recall how my G. Rozanne behaved the first year since it's been at least 10 years since I planted the first one. But it is normal for perennials to take at least one season to establish. As long as the plants get plenty of sun (although Rozanne does very well in partial sun), moisture and get good drainage, they should do better and better in later years.

I planted 6 Rozanne. I lost two but it's because their neighbors had crowded them out. The remaining ones are doing very well. I love the sprawling habit and its color that deepens as fall approaches.

I removed the Geranium that I had, that I believed to be 'Rozanne'. I think it was mislabeled as something else, but it certainly looked like everyone's Rozanne. I was just ready to get rid of a lot in the spring and that made it onto my list.

I have only one coreopsis left. I bought 'Sienna Sunset' which is not the bi color you asked about, but is in that later series of cultivars. I'm potting it up to give away. Just have not found an application for it that I'm wild about. It has been hardy though and came back fine after last year's hard winter.

there is an iris forum ... i have never seen many of those peeps here ... but watch zone info .. a lot of the hardcore are in warmer climes ...

never know where you will find the best info

next to yoru name above.. it says NONE ... if you go to your members page.. you can change that to zone and big city ... it will help us to remember.. where you are ... sometimes it matters ...

for me.. ground heave in late winter.. in MI ... would be the issue ...

ken

Here, winter moisture management is the issue. I don't think I've had a single tuberous iris survive planting after the end of August. They just don't have the root system necessary to wick the water away.

Dealing with potential frost heave is easy. Just put a fairly large stone or brick over the rhizome.

Oh, neat linkie, Rouge. How about that s.mandschuriensis? I can see that my NOID is a dead ringer for s.stolonifera . if it was not cruelly confined to a pot, it might well be more of a spreader - I will set it free in the woods.
I have always enjoyed the name - saxifrage, aka rock-breaker. Given the delicacy of mossy saxifrage or the silvery Kabischas, I find the rough tough name amusing.

I had Saxifraga fortunei var. rubrifolia in my previous garden. It doesn't like dry shade. Soil should be humus rich, not too dry and wel draining. Ideal woodland conditions that gardening books always talk about but that you seldom have ... My previous garden wasn't infested with snails so I can't tell you about that. Vine weevils, however, do like Saxifraga fortunei.

this site says e spring or fall, so here i go...!

Here is a link that might be useful: j. holly fern info

This fern did survive fall division, but was clearly traumatized by it. Every other site i found this yr- says to divide in e. Spring, so I will follow them (and George's) advice next spring.
mindy

Nice, thanks for the update. Is either fragrant?

They are somewhat fragrant, but not to the extent that lilies can be.

Funny, certainly true of some perennials, but there are plenty with short flowering seasons that have other features -- foliage, seedheads -- that extend their interest for a greater part of the year.

At this point I'm interested in very little that isn't native to the tallgrass prairie region where I live, but this is the forum I come to most often. Like Campanula, I'm not going to read anything about hostas, but I find that I've learned a lot about perennial gardening in general even when the specific plants discussed aren't ones I'm going to use (i.e. when to do cleanup, whether to plant in fall, etc.).

I suppose I also have the advantage that, living in the middle of the country, my zone and the ones on either side cover a huge area. I might be more inclined to seek out a regional forum if I lived farther north or south.

I suppose I should be considered a perennial weed on the forum, I often feel that way among all the fancy plants I see but a perennial is a perennial is a.....

Same here woodstea except I am more shortgrass prairie oriented, however there are a lot of native perennials involved with either situation. Maybe you are a weed too but I like that I can meet a few people every now and then with similar interests and goals.

Flowers are rather lower down on my list of interest when I am choosing plants, I am more inclined to choose plants with foliage color or texture based on how they look out of bloom because my space is limited & it gives interest in all seasons, including winter which is always a factor. If I had an acreage it would be different. I also tend to choose plants that have a long bloom time, a second bloom time or those that will bloom opportunistically with rain but which still look good out of bloom which includes several along with lots of grasses which always look good. As a result, I have some short lived perennials, annuals and biennials among the long lived perennials that I let naturalize here which keeps them going year after year. Evergreen or 'Eversilver' often makes a plant desirable to me, no matter the bloom.

Our regional forum is devoted mostly to vegetables. Thats all fine and well but I don't find much to read or post about.