13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Great info, karin_mt.
I have been passing them along to friends and neighbors, taking them to plant swaps and posting them on freecycles.
I will post them on freecycles again next spring. Posting on craigslists resulted in only one taker who did not show up at the last minute. I suppose a car full of plants for $15 was still too expensive for people.
Maybe I will post an offer on freecycles again then add that I want potting soil so I can use it for winter sowing.
A poster here used to hold plant sales. I wanted to follow her foot steps, but never had the grumption to pot up the plants and be organized enough in spring.
Like Flora, they get the heel of my shoe here. This year they have been worse than ever. 10 years ago we just had slugs to contend with, then the snails started moving in. This year my Sum and Substance hosta looks like someone aimed a shotgun at it and let fly.
I covered one of the benches in the greenhouse with copper mesh this spring, the snails here must be on steroids because when I went out in the morning the snail trails were very evident, so at night I got in the habit of putting domes over my flats of seedling. Yes I use Slug and Snail pellets in the greenhouse, I'm beginning to think they just consider them the appetizer :(.
Annette
I feel for the gardeners. I heard on NPR that Britain is infested with slugs many inches long. I have seen those banana slugs in the Pacific NW. They are huge and long. Ours in the Midwest are puny by comparison.
I used to spray them with salty water or ammonia - I can't remember which. They dissolved before my eyes. They are slimy for sure and made my hosta unsightly. But I felt guilty killing them. :-( Slug go works until it rains. But I have not applied any for several years.
I suppose that doesn't answer your question very well. Though Debbie has a rather good idea. Since the ones I grow aren't extremely hardy, I keep them potted & during severe winter spells, bring inside (don't have a cool garage to put them in, to overwinter, anymore.)
If you are simply using them like expensive annuals, then do as she suggested, with the benefit of maintain them easily, over winter stored in a garage & cutting back. Bring out, after it warms up & you should have the same ones , to use all over again. Unless, as I mentioned, you locate the hardy variety & place them between your tomato plants & see if they survive the winter, as it appears it may be the southern exposure, against the house, which helps the chances of survival, a great deal
I'm in zone 5 in Maine, but don't have the patience to over-winter the annual mums they sell potted around here. They'd never look as good as when I buy them in the fall.
Since you're asking if they'd look better in your decorative pots or planted, do you have photos of your pots? I assume that everything you show for your tomatoes comes down, so you have the blank garage wall and the mulched strip? If your pots are on the taller side, they may added some desired height. If you're buying the large potted ones ( I see everything here from quart to bushel size!) you wouldn't needed the added height.
Thank you.
Making compost is work. There's no getting around that. A few times a year, I pitch-fork out all the material inside and pitch-fork it back in. Trust me, that stuff is heavy and not a pleasant task on a hot and humid July day, but you have to do it.
Karin - I have three bins. Here they are with a few comments. Least favorite first.
This one is as close to worthless as you can get. It's too small, the walls are too thin and all the air vents make it almost impossible to keep the contents moist. I think I got this one from Gardeners Supply or someplace similar.
This one is a lot better. It's larger, the walls are thicker, not as many air vents. However, one kind of annoying feature are these little doors on the bottom sides. They keep falling off and I never use them. Contrary to what a lot of ads say, you don't shovel the finished product out these bottom doors. It just doesn't work that way. This is by Toro.
By far, my absolute favorite is this one by Rubbermaid. I simply adore it because it works. It's very large, the walls are thick so they really keep the heat in. There are NO air vents and no little doors on the bottom. It took about a minute to put the whole thing together. Very simple and material inside starts to decompose very quickly. I would like to get another one of these, but I don't know if they still make them.
Kevin
Very nice Kevin! Your bins, despite some of their problems, make compost fairly quickly, it seems. I don't manage mine closely enough - keep throwing stuff in when I really should let what's already in there cook and start a new one.
It's very satisfying when you get a great batch of compost. Congrats!
Dee
Thanks for so much valuable information!
I'm still in "learning" mode, and today I'll be working on the list of plants to ship.
I was going to ship on Saturday, not thinking about the plants sitting at the PO office. I didn't consider that. Wow!
I almost made my first disaster.
This is an exciting new task to learn. Not only do we acquire lots of great new species of plants, we also learn more about gardening free! I love this website already. I am telling EVERYONE I know about it.
Thanks and wish me luck on my first trade. I want to make it perfect for the receiver. However, since it's my first trade I'm dividing extras for that just in case they all crock before they are received.
Happy Gardening!
Kat
Here is a link that might be useful: My Exchange List
There must be more to it than extreme cold as my bb have survived for more than ten years and even last year's extreme cold did not phase them. It may be a combination of wet cold winters. We generally have good snow cover but not always. And while I have clay soil one thing we don't have is wet soil as the soil remains frozen most of the winter.
I agree with the idea of poor drainage/wet conditions (esp in winter and spring). Unfortunately, that's when I get the most moisture...thus for me, a butterfly bush has never been more than an annual. I've never seen fit to build it a mound or something to make them more perennial, dunno if it would help or not..with moisture coming from the sky.
Posted by nhbabs z4b-5a NH (My Page) on Fri, Sep 5, 14 at 12:35
Posted by christinmk z5b eastern WA (My Page) on Wed, Sep 3, 14 at 11:17
I am sorry that I did not take other pictures of the pink flowering tree. But I took pictures of others:
This seems to be a great method for selling perennials :
I have never seen a cake with fig toppings:
What is this yellow flower:
English wall:
I wonder if the pink one is some kind of ungainly Fabaceae, it looks kind of like a cross between an Indigofera or Lespedeza and a Bauhinia. The yellow one definitely is...I'm guessing a Cassia but there are so many members of that clan it could be something else. Definitely a pea flower and leaf though.
I like to tidy up my garden as the season progresses. If I get too many seedlings or if anything gets diseased, I just pull or cut them.
I am especially more ruthless this year because I would like to show off my hostas that are getting larger. I also have thousands of bulbs among my perennials, so I need to remove faded leaves or stalks so that the bulbs can push through from early February on instead of them getting buried under leaves/stalks from the previous year.
I attempt a Fall cleanup but haven't finished it all ever because I just get to the point where I don't want to go out in the yard anymore!
The last two years DH and I used an electric hedge trimmer (with a heckuva long cord) and it works wonderfully! I grab/bunch the foliage up at the top (sometimes with rope it it's tall), and he "clear-cuts" it to the ground. Not much muss or fuss. We do the same only use a chainsaw for the tall ornamental grasses. We have a JD gator with a dump box--we just throw it in there--it's quite painless! We just start making our way around the yard. This year I plan to get 'er all cut back all the way around--or die trying!
Over the last few years I've been planting dwarf evergreens throughout the borders so it doesn't look so bare when the garden's asleep. Makes a huge difference. There are so many gorgeous dwarf evergreens/conifers in different colors, shapes, textures, growth habits, etc. I seek them out now almost as much as I do perennials!
I dread cleaning up the mess if I wait till Spring to cut back. Especially if I don't get to a plant before it sends out new shoots--then I have take the nippers and pretend I'm a surgeon--which is a painstaking--PIA!
I'm on a quest to tidy up the property in all manners. Goal is to go to the furthermost part and have it look nice. I've slacked on this for too many years and now I have the time to do something about it. Been on a mission inside the house, too. I'll maintain the look after I'm all done. That's the plan, anyway! LOL
Funny how many different takes there are on this, I love that!
A few years ago I decided to move my S. 'Autumn Joy' one cool day in early autumn. I dug it up with a spading fork, pulled it over onto an empty potting soil bag, dragged it across the lawn from the front of my garden to the back & planted it in its new location. From start to finish there were a dozen bumblebees asleep on the blooms.
Normally I'm scared of bees. That pretty much cut my fear factor in half.
That's funny that you had a dream about 7 bunnies. I have a similar, overactive imagination sometime but the idea of 7 bunnies sounds alright to me. For some reason they do not eat our garden, and I sure don't understand why.
I liked reading what others do for their soil, seeing as how it's very different depending on where you live and what you plant.
I used alfalfa pellets in my greenhouse one late fall and for the whole winter it smelled like a cozy horse barn in there, loved that. I should try that again, just for the aromatherapy.
In the fall I don't normally do much of anything but I have 2 CompostTumblers full of completed compost so I think I will put them on the veggie beds post harvest. I think that would make a nice foundation for next year. I amend my raised beds in the spring normally but it makes it all feel so daunting to do all the amending and digging for 8 raised beds first thing in the spring. So this year I will try it differently.
Oh, one more thing is that another source for alfalfa pellets and all kinds of other organic yumminess is Planet Natural. Link below.
Here is a link that might be useful: Organic fertilizers at Planet Natural
Morz, I have a lot of area to cover! Got an e-mail from the mushroom grower. The ingredients are:
straw
dried poultry waste
gypsum
sugar beet lime
mushroom mycelium
ground, hydrolized soybean (not sure what form it began as)
The landscape company that sells the compost is in the process of certifying it as organic.
I do let the fallen leaves stay on the flower bed surface though--years ago I used to rake them up--imagine that, duh!
Thanks for the encouragement, pitimpinai! I love worms and want to try growing them (again). Speaking of mosquitoes...hate them! I'm fortunate not to have any critters that eat my flowers--except a few weevils and slugs here and there...never seen bunnies in my area.
Mind if I ask where you get your bulbs? I need more bulbs. My piddly stands of a few daffodils look very lonely in the Spring.
Karin, would love to see your greenhouse--a dream of mine. Although I dream of a conservatory type structure that looks ancient!
I should have asked, if you were able to easily remove all four colors from the pot, or if the roots had become entwined & not readily separated & the entire pot of soil mix, came out as one mass, or with a light hosing, readily falls apart.... If you plant them all together, the longer you wait, the more difficult they may become, to separate.
Division, is another matter & involves dividing each individual separately colored plant & Echinacea can take some time, to recover, from that procedure.
For instance, I have had 'Milkshake' , 'Kim's Red Knee High' & both colors of 'Pow Wow' for several years now & never divided any of them. They look so much better as a rounded mass, than if I had a few flowers on a couple stalks, located in various places....
I decided to check out 'Cheyenne Spirit', as afterall, it did get Fleuroselect & AAS, award... Produced by Kieft, the germination rate was rated at about 70%. Also, with a 'Utilty Patent', whatever that means...Rights to its production name, for the next 20 years, for the years of time, work, efforts, care & money, that went into it?
It appears the producer had originally started it, as a cross between 'Magnus' & 'Knee High' & then more complex breeding after that, over quite a few years (over ten?), to come up with stable uniform plants in a variety of about 7 different colors.
At a cost of about $5. for 15 seeds (not to mention shipping costs), it may be easier to buy another pot of your favorite colors, if you really like it !
I did not see if it is actually an F1 hybrid, but if so, then any seeds you collect, may not be quite like the named variety, in the size & series of colors of what you have now.
If I liked it that much, I'd buy another pot full, as opposed to trying to chill (vernalize the sown seeds in the fridge) & then have to wait, until next year, to see which colors you get. For those reasons, I would be opposed to buying & sowing seeds, not knowing what colors appear.
Instead, since they are locally available, I would go back, selecting a pot of four more, in colors more to your liking & preference, separately plant them & have fairly nice sized plants,& a great looking collection, next year...
Finally got rid of the stuff. Houttuynia was sold around here as an aquatic. It ran under a 3 ft wide sidewalk & into my bed of shrubs. Scared I'd kill the shrubs with Roundup, I used 2,4D since the label said it was good for broad leaf weeds. I sprayed each leaf top & bottom. It did the trick & didn't harm my Gold Flame spirea. I only had 2 sprouts this spring & got out the 2,4D to take care of them. It's Sept & haven't had any more this season. You might try it. In the meantime, I won't be bringing anything "Japanese" to my southern garden. Think "kudzu"
By chance I had a Persicaria "Painter's Palette" side by side with a "Chameleon" in very trying conditions ie under a tree with generally very dry conditions and lean soil. Within two seasons the "Chameleon" had disappeared with the PP just holding its own.