13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

My name is Victoria, I am a plant addict...... Thanks guys ;)

See you at the meeting, Vic!

Maybe they are just bored of the same old thing, or it is a young one trying to reinvent the diet..

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.

Wow SB. Those pics could be representative of a thriving, vigorous garden in *July*!

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.

The dark color is very pretty! From what I've read, the color and size/shape of the flowers is quite variable. It looks like you've got a very nice one there.

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

B. grandis lasted a couple of years for me, but apparently even moderate winter cold here was too much for it.

Very nice plant though for a mostly shady border.

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

THANK you! That's it exactly. Thank you so much!

It's quite often seen as a house plant in places with colder winters.

" I think the Hollyhock-like malva you were looking at may have been the sylvestris malva. Your picture could be the moschatta malva. (I think)."

You got that right,...
Thanks.

My sedums 'Frosty Morn' had been always leggy , floppy and ugly towards the middle of the summer. I was almost ready to get rid of it completely when I read an advice on gardenweb about cutting it back by 1/3 in June to make plants bushy, short and non-floppy. I tried it this year and I love the result. I will definitely try this trick next year with other sedums like Neon and Autumn Joy. Same with New England asters.
Here are 3 of my sedums 'Frosty Morn' now - full, short and attractive

This post was edited by green_go on Mon, Sep 15, 14 at 19:41

Thank you all, for your continued kind words. Campanula, yes, exactly. Setting the garden (and home) within the larger context is always the tricky thing, right? Like, on one hand you want to have your way over the landscape, to tame it and mold it into more of what you like. But on the other hand, the cues really need to come from what's already around you otherwise it's either going to be a ton or work to fight nature, and/or it won't even look right when you're done. So the rock theme really plays well here.

GreenHearted, that's a great question. I have done the foundation differently on different stone projects here. I'm not an expert on this, but none of my walls have fallen down yet! (With the older ones being over 10 years old.) You are quite right, a dry-stacked wall is an inherently flexible structure and is very forgiving of expansion and contraction of the ground.

On this wall, I dug/scraped down to the subsoil layer, which is a very compacted, concrete-like substance. I didn't put down gravel or anything, mostly because the very idea of that pushed the project into the realm of unrealistic for my diy self.

Stonework does have a tendency to slowly sink into the ground. Rocks that used to be standing above grade are now below the level of the grass. I'm not sure how much a gravel foundation would help that. One of my walls has a gravel foundation and it hasn't behaved any differently than the others as far as I can tell.

Not sure if that answer helps or not! :)

That helps a lot, thank you Karin!

It gives me hope that I will be able to replicate this one day. I love the flush ledge around the wall too... you can probably get a wheel of the mower on it and not have to line trim.

The cinder block base for the steps is another great idea!