13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
nevermore, All the plants I bought had multiple flowers that looked fine at the time of purchase. I have not seen clustered cones. What I see are normal looking stems and early cones that develop green tops and never produce petals. It looked so much like online photos I've seen for AY that I did not take a photo of my plants. I did not notice any lack of vigor in the plants. In fact they seemed very healthy. Some have suggested living with the disease, which will not manifest until August.
My real question is whether I should throw out the plants or tolerate the disease, given that it is said to originate from leafhoppers that winter in the South and infect wild carrots etc. which exist here in abundance.
If I see these symptoms again, I will post photos on this forum.
MBWD
from my experience, the immature blooms can look similar with either issue... so if you can let one develop fully... you will be able to verify what's going on.
My father has a patch of standard purp echs that are partially infected with AY... and have been for years. I don't know if it's killing any and infecting later generations or if the infected plants just aren't being killed by the virus. The infected plants always grow quite vigorously.
In regards to keeping them... i say remove them since they can then be a vector to other plants (rudbeckia, some veggies, goldenrod... even you precious dandelions!). They won't be attractive by any means either... so pitch them.
Infected echinacea...
Infected rudbeckia....
When it rained it was not light. It was torrential! Not like the gentile rainbow at the end of the seeding episode. I expect the same again today. I need to go out and flag the new plantings so I do not LOOSE them in the litter . My leg is better but I am not sure that traversing a slippery slope on it is not advisable today.
You did good by cutting all the ugly/broken foliage off, that's all they'll need. Yes there are mixed opinions on cutting back in the fall. I don't myself as I have found they are less prone to powdery mildew if left alone. Of course if it is a rainy humid summer like this one... Nothing helps, it was a bad year for phlox.
Have you ever tried selling on Craigslist? Not sure if that interests you, but it would save you on shipping and time.
Good for you on your good buys! Gotta love those sales.
Your driveway sounds like what the call a "pot ghetto"...luckily mine are all planted...until my fall shipment arrives ;)
Santarosagardens has a great sale online now if you want to add to your collection lol.
Good luck and happy planting!!
If I may bud in here, When I read the message from min13, I did not perceive any harsh or abrasive tones as you seem to see. It looked to me as from someone that has to be more conservative with water and that it was in awe that you have it.
Some people have a high water table, others don't. I don't and hold approbation for those that do.
Thank you SO very much for understanding me Emerogork2! You are exactly right about my intentions and it is a great comfort to me to have your message.
I am making you my new best friend, and wherever you are, I hope all your gardens are growing better than any in your wildest dreams. Min3
Wantonamara, I find the thorny things their favorites here - they love roses and blackberry.
They never bothered hydrangea at my former house just 6 minutes away. Here, they would occasionally take a bite or two of the three large mature hydrangeas, nothing too damaging. Last weekend I moved the two 5x5' plants on each side of the front entry, cottage look deciduous shrubs just didn't make sense to me there. I dragged them on a tarp about 75' and replanted them under and with camellias and cherries - the deer have been seriously feeding on them just like they'd never seen hydrangeas before. I put on shoes and went out in my robe this morning and had a serious talk with a doe and her fawn, shoulders into the already insulted, dug up and moved hydrangeas and she did finally go next door. I'll get some deer repellent on them today when I've never had to spray them.
Thanks.
It's obvious to all gardeners (in our growing conditions) that the photography has to be a bit more selective/ creative at this time of year. Can't fill in all the gaps with fall mums.
In fact, I do feel uncomfortable at times posting any pictures. It's like somebody comes to your garden but you only let them look where you want them to look; namely, where the gardening has been more successful.
Failures may be less inspiring than successes, but perhaps there's more to learn from them.
:-) This thread makes me smile. :-D This bantering warms my heart after reading negative things on various webs.
lilsprout, Coeropsis! I just dug out all the shoots of my coreopsis to make room for a miniature Solomon's Seal last week.
I got rid of my Aster 'Purple Smoke' a long, long time ago. Frost always zapped it before the flower buds began to open. I don't understand why it bloomed so late in my garden, because it blooms much earlier for my friend who lives only 3 miles away.
Thanks for that info Woody.
Appreciate the warning.
As said, I like well-behaved perennials.
It's a pity that you can't be sure what they're doing beneath the surface.
Pitimpinai mentioned Solomon's seal.
Am sure that the miniature one's fine, but digging out blocks of the EurAsian one was quite a surprise to me. The tubers were layered and interlocked. Pulling them apart was a bit like separating out irregularly shaped Lego bricks.
Thanks, woody. It looks like there are two plants together. Perhaps a dormant seed germinated a year or so after I planted the light blue there and it is finally big enough to bloom. Think I will leave them together as I like the contrast of the deeper blue with the pale blue. The branches are intermingled with both colored blooms throughout.
I had the same question! I'm also zone 7b. I an thinking of just pulling them and putting them inside for the winter in containers as I've gotten such mixed answers as to their cold hardiness.
Pitimpinai - chicago should be a similar zone, if not the same, as us in 7b I would think. your friend had them outside all winter and they came back again next year? (for a few short years I guess?)
Yes, the microclimate in Chicago itself is much different from the surrounding area.
My neighbor planted it outside in front of her house. It came back a few years then died one winter. I also remember another friend planting it in her garden. Hers also disappeared after a few years.
Uh Oh. You had the silver maple "pruned mercilessly." That almost always means that you had limbs hacked off all over the place. That kind of tree torture is common here and the result is a huge flush of very unstable and weak growth that is all but guaranteed to have limbs break and fall on the slightest excuse--wind, heavy snow or ice. Get an expert with proper accreditation to look at your tree and assess its safety.
then have it taken down ASAP
Hello, laceyvail --
Thanks for writing to me.
Maybe I shouldn't have said "mercilessly."
After the main trunk, the tree divides into three equally giant limbs. One of those was threatening the house -- would have caused great destruction if...
On the advice of my contractor's arborist in August 2013, that mighty limb was removed right at the trunk. Another tree service had said, "Oh, no, you can't do that. The other two limbs will split apart. The tree will die."
The second arborist said, âÂÂLet me get my chainsaw.âÂÂ
The limb was removed, and the tree woke up in the spring fresh as a daisy. The wound was sealed and hasn't gone moldy or oozy or anything. For the rest, the tips of a few branches here and there were trimmed.
My house is safe(r), but the tree is still a monstrosity. Completely out of scale with my house. Depending on my mood, removing it bounces between my to-do list and my bucket list.
Cheers!
Bernard
I accquired it when I was in college (way back in the 80s) and know I transplanted some to my new home back umm say fifteen years ago. It since died out at parents house (but then it was untended and unwatered).
It seems pretty reliable here, though I have seen a late frost kill the tops once or twice (but it does resprout at ground level).
I am amending my suggestion here since transplanting, rather than division, can be done (carefully) at any time. Mucking about with pruning saws and trenching spades is a different proposition to merely relocating an entire plant......although even this would be far more than the amellus types can bear - spring is the ONLY time for dealing with either amellus or frikartii types.
I love 'Alma Pötschke', AM, not least because I take the colour to be magenta and I don't take kindly to people trying to ban particular flower colours from other peoples gardens (as per Gertrude Jekyll).
Interesting comments, Campanula.
"When do I transplant Asters?"
Perhaps the first answer should be, as you indicate, "Which asters"?
There's evidently more latitude with some than with others.
I have used both New England asters and Frikart's asters for years. The former is extremely hardy here and the latter (at least in my experience) is definitely not. Individual Frikart's aster plants may last five or more years, but the large majority I've planted lasted a notably shorter period of time.
Wild New England aster is extremely widespread in North America (east of the Rockies) and it has also naturalized in Europe. On the other hand, Frikart's aster is a hybrid between Italian aster (Aster amellus) and Thomson's aster, both plants from mountainous regions of Europe and western Asia
I LOVE surprises! Probably more than things I've actually planted lol. I had some different potentilla/cinquefoils pop up in the front along with many many MANY weeds. Some goldenrod (I know, most say its a weed, especially this one, but I still love it). I also had a sunflower pop up... that was a surprise to say the least! I found a wild geranium at some point and a little campanula of some sort (I call it "cluster bells" because it looks like a plant marked "cluster bells" that I received from a plant exchange my first year of gardening... my dog was a puppy and he grabbed the little pot and ran off with it and it never pulled through). Surprises are a wonderful thing (in the garden - I'm not wild about them elsewhere in life)
wantanamara, Every time I pull this up I get another gander at that funky bizarre plant. Ya know, its actually kind of gross in a creepy but really cool way. It looks like a naked flesh colored stem with flesh colored polyps dangling from it. Key word here is FLESH. Are those bladdery things seed pods or what? That is one weird looking plant. Brings to mind the movie 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'.