13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
My brother planted peonies here 40+ years ago & I've added quite a few myself over the years. I've never done anything to them since moving here in 2005. The foliage gets discolored late in the growing season sometimes but I've never treated it and the plants just keep coming back every year with zero help from me. Since they also bloom heavily, I figure they're healthy and don't need my help.
I put peony rings around my baptisia to prevent flopping. They're perennials that are just really worth having in my garden beds--I have four. Like peonies, they need zero attention from me other than the peony rings for support and I leave those year-round. I do nothing either to or for my baptisias. They have incredible taproots so never need watering. The foliage remains lovely right through the growing season and once the weather cools they naturally go dormant. Basically all I do is enjoy them.
According to Perennials for Every Purpose by Larry Hodgson, baptisias grow 3-4 ft. tall and 3-4 ft. wide. I've had mine for a number of years and that's been my experience with each of the four I have planted. I don't know where you're located but don't guess yours will exceed those measurements.
Peonies can suffer from something called botrytis blight. I Googled it and found a picture on the Missouri Botanical Garden website (see link). Judging by the photo, your plants don't have it.
Sorry: I don't grow kiwi vine so can't help with that.
An established perennial garden generally shouldn't require a great deal of maintenance unless it includes roses. Mine doesn't for that very reason--I purposely have no roses in my garden.
Here is a link that might be useful: Botrytis blight
The peonies undoubtedly have botrytis, a fungal disease common to peonies, though they don't get it every year. Just leave them alone until frost kills them. Then cut them back, but never put peony foliage in the compost; put it in plastic bags and send it out with the trash. Clean your pruners with a weak bleach solution and just go on with the garden clean up.
Glad it's acceptable for you Dee. I guess I've felt that way too. One of mine is looking really good this year and seems a little bit bigger, but I moved the second one in the spring because it was slower growing than the other one and I thought it might be location. So now they're both about 6 ft away from each other and will get the same conditions. The one I moved has settled in but hasn't grown much at all, so maybe next year it might start catching up? The one that is doing well, is almost to the size that I'd be happy with. It's adding what I wanted to the bed and couldn't be easier. I don't have a problem with the color either.
On the other hand, I've pretty much decided I may rip out my Weigela Wine and Roses. I've been paying attention this year and although it looked pretty good in the spring and flowered well, since then the foliage has faded and looks washed out. I have a gold leaved Kolkwitzia in the border and I wanted the dark contrast in the bed with it. I also have a dark leaved Hibiscus Kopper King on the other side of it and I tried something different with that this year. It has been a little gangly for me in past seasons, so this year I took someone's advice to cut it back when it was about a foot tall and it has become bushier and not gangly at all. Tons of buds on it, clean foliage for a change and I noticed it has a little gold tone to part of the leaves that is working really well with the gold Kolkwitzia, so I am thinking I'm going to put another KKing in place of the Wine and Roses I'm taking out.
.....one month later, now it's a wait and see if it's winter hardy here. I have lost a few Echinaceas when we've had a really wet winter. I never been a fan of orange flowers but so far I'm loving this one. Picture taken in the rain.
Annette
It might be the warmer clime in VA but my Walkers Low flopped open in the middle (after blooming profusely and buzzing with tons of bees). It was lookin' kinda ratty so I cut it back (before July 4th). The result was like lepages - looks way better neat n fluffy even if rebloom is on the light side!
Keep in mind that mine is 1st yr plant, in inadvertently over-fertilized soil, and growing thru a 12" grid set about 6" high.
After posting I decided to let it bloom. It is still setting flower on the tips of the branches, still a good blue color - but the bees don't pay as much attention. It flopped, blocking some other plants - it's in a 4' wide border - but never got ratty looking. I want some blue in that area of the border, so I'm happy w/the decision.
But - it sprouted some good secondary growth, from the center, that looks like the description of trimmed-back growth, greener and fluffy, with light color just starting now. Note - we've had a cool wet Spring and Summer (for Denver) this year, may have affected it.
Both sprawl and upright are flowering, sorta the best of both worlds. Next yr plan on larger grid, set higher to try to hold the flop, and will only trim for appearance or to unblock other plants; no idea what growth will be like but hoping for a "shock of wheat" look.
May not be a good fit in the border - already planning to move 2 Achillea out to front yard because they take up so much room - but I'll give it another year. Thx for sharing all the info.
Bob
Rouge, I'm glad you brought it up again, it's been about a month since I bought mine and I can't say enough nice things about this new plant. Mine is in full bloom now, the flowers last and last and last, almost like they're suspended in time. While other things have suffered a bit from this long hot spell we've had not this plant. I still have to see how it deals with winter, I've lost a few Echinaceas due to too wet a winter but I have high hopes for this Echibeckia. I have the orange flowering one but will keep my eyes open for the other ones. It's raining right now but will try and get a picture of mine later. It's heeled in, a temporary spot for the time being.
I'm still working on that small overgrown bed, so far two wheelbarrows full of roots dug. I'm afraid this bed isn't going to be ready for awhile, want to make sure i've got all the L. of the V. roots out before I do any planting.
Annette
To be honest, I am sceptical too, First off, it looks like a shoo-in for rudbeckia hirta....so I guess the perennial promise is the USP here ....but mostly, I have triailed a few intergeneric hybrids and all of them, in varying extents, seems to have some terrible weakness. For a self-confessed seed saver, the inevitable sterility is hardly ever an asset, especially in late flowerers such as the rudbeckias or anything which has a flowering cycle dependent on daylight length (shortening days after the solstice). Secondly, many hybrids seem to inherit a worrying disposition to come down with diseases. Hybrid vigour: we all recognise this phenomenon but when cutting across genera, I have not truly noticed any plus in this area.
Finally, I spent 4 years at hort.college walking past a tragic laburnocytisus Adamsii hybrid - for 4 weeks every May, I used to actually cut across fields at the rear of the college to avoid the grisly sight of this horror. They had a hawthorn and something one (graft chimaera) and several stone fruit hybrids as well (which I don't grow) but nothing as upsetting as the Adamsii.
Still, I am failing to get terribly excited about many of these highly bred nursery confections - possibly being a little bit poor but mostly because I have nearly always gone down the seed and cutting route and have pretty much missed out on the massive breeding programmes of the last 30 years or so (and as I often make some spare money by selling plants, the Breeder's rights and patents are essentially an obstacle. So, I shall not be spending money on this until it has had a thorough testing and even then, it would need to have sterling properties before parting with (gasp) cash money..
I am surprised that they cannot take the Texan sun Cheryl.
Mine sit out in the full Mediterranean sun all the time.
I have found this one to be very forgiving of poor treatment. I wouldn't expect them to take a harsh winter, but they grow well in England as they do here.
It has been in the same pot for 9 years. It travelled across Europe with me, when I moved from England 7 years ago.
I split it a few years ago and put each pot of it at each end of the pond.
My neighbour who watered my pots for me, when I had to visit England for 2 weeks, overlooked them, so when I returned they looked dead. They came back from the dead though and have looked good ever since.
Daisy
My Latitude is 5 degrees further south than Creete and even though our continental mass has us colder in the winter, the sun is a bugger in the summer.I found the Mediterranean sun bright but gentle. We are on par with Cairo. You average about 10-20 F 0 degrees less then us in summer (98- 103F this week). It makes a difference to the plants. Jadite in New Mexico has your latitude and similar highs but her humidity is way down and the evaporation rate is murderous in the sun.
My plant of Dittany maybe can be pushed out further into the sun , now that it is bigger. I take it carefully.
Fasciation, result of plant tissue growth along a line rather than to a point.
Occurs rarely, but more in some plant families. The daisy family, Asteraceae/Compositae, includes Echinacea, is one of them.
There are various potential causes, many environmental (or partly so).
Below: culver's root 'Fasciation' (July 19,14).
In the case of a few plants like this cultivar, fasciation occurs quite commonly; which does suggest a genetic tendency.
I was thinking about it , and his email had his name attatched to it . Unfortunately for me it's common enough that it is impossible to pin point exactly who he his , even with google stalking all of us . I would love to dig it up myself and deliver it to his door step. I could only imagine his shock !
With a note saying , please take care of her , I'm moving to Walmart and can't care for her anymore! Lol
I know the sender of the nasty note wasn't from PA!!! We don't sell beer in our Walmart, only in Beer Distributors or you can buy 6 packs ONLY in bars. We have a "State Store" system here that the legislature and governor has been trying to get rid of for years.
Geesh, what a wet blanket. He needs to spend some time on anger management, I think.
You can transplant almost any time of the summer if you take the proper precautions and water and shade your transplants.
Linda
I have dogs so cats don't visit my yard, but my neighbor has strays/roamers. She sets orange/lemon and lime peels around. I hear they don't like citrus. . . when she stops I see them coming back but when she is on top of it not a cat to be seen.
Good Luck. . .
I always cut my plant, if not all the way to the ground at least 1/2 of the plant. Doing this, in my opinion, helps the roots recover quicker from the transplant (less to try to revive and try to keep alive) and there is less of an eye sore (no dried up droopy foliage)
I got mine from a friend 2 summers ago, dug it up in July from her garden, planted it in mine a few days later. The next season you couldn't even tell it was a new transplant. You CAN NOT kill this plant. . .
I think you Aconitum might be 'A. x cammarum `Eleanor' not 'Bicolor' this one has been said to grow to 6'. I have two different Aconitums in my garden 'Bicolor' and one I'm not sure what it is but it blooms in october when not to much else is in bloom besides my asters. Although all parts of this plant are poisonous it's often used in florist bouquets.
Lots of the plants we grow have negative effects of one kind or another, common sense in place one should be able to grow these plants and enjoy them.
I was taught when I was a child what not to eat or touch in the garden, I guess it stuck I'm still here :).
Annette
OOOOH Witch Tex, I am shaking down to my toes, LOL. I am in your camp. I loved all the dangerous plants when i was a kid. My mom RAISED me in Shark and sea snake infested waters of the South China Sea until I was 7.We swam a lot off of their sailboat in deep waters. The vine on the outside of my house had Kraits. They could kill you in 15 minutes as the legend goes. Did I mention Cobras and Tigers (we lived in the jungle part of the time)? I was cognizant of real dangers even at a young age. Poisonous plants are safe as long as you don't ingest what you don't know. They don't slither in the window at night and bite. Plants were not even on the top ten list of things to watch out for.
There is a new term that makes me laugh. "Nanny State". It is the urge to legislate and otherwise make the world so safe it will bore you to tears and all we will have is mediocre kids, no daring, no imagination. Better keep our myths without any violence and sounding like milk paste while we are at it. No Hans Christian Anderson for them.. No diving boards, no Greg Luganis. The rest of the world thinks that we are a bunch of nanny's when it comes to all things dangerous. That we have jumped the shark on this issue.
Gardenweed, I would imagine that the kids that will inherit your garden will be of the age to not eat the garden unconsciously. One could also put a warning in the will. My garden has a host of Dangerous things. I even have Death Camus, locoweed, hemlock, crows poison, oleander, larkspur, datura, bruganmansia,just for starters.
Campanula, Beautiful plant.
Crime can happen in any neighborhood. I've had solar lights stolen from the back yard and plants uprooted from the front yard. Once a thief came onto the lit back porch while I was in the kitchen. I heard a sound and opened the door. I thought maybe we had an animal in the recycling bin, or maybe my boyfriend had arrived home from work and had stumbled. Instead a stranger glanced at me, grabbed one of our umbrellas and ran away.
I still garden, and I refuse to let others deprive me of the choice to have nice things. Good for you for doing the same. Do what you can to avoid being a target and give yourself peace of mind.
I've been tempted to buy a motion-activated sprinkler like the Scarecrow to deter both people and animals. Have you seen these? They're obviously not for drought-prone areas, or if your house is right on the sidewalk.
If space allows, instead of multiple small pots get one huge one. Think about the weight of the contents, not just the pot itself. Even plastic pots can be too heavy to lift if the container is large enough. One pot is also easier to secure than four. As Karin suggested, if your porch has a rail you can run a bicycle lock cable through the empty pot's drain hole and lock it to the rail. Having an expensive item stolen will make you even more angry, so look for pots on sale. Or make your own planter, if you like that sort of DIY.
I have had hanging plants stolen right off of my front porch. I now have the hanging baskets under lock and chained to my front porch railing. The few pots I have on my driveway are in very heavy concrete pots that even I cannot lift. And so far they are not pulling the plants right out of the concrete pots. One year I had three of my geranium pots stolen from my driveway and that was heartbreaking.
Betty
I'm no botanist but in my experience annual plants generally sprout, grow, bloom then die once frost nips them when the weather turns cold. Perennials on the other hand send up new growth in spring, bloom during their annual growth cycle, then go dormant once frost nips them when the weather turns cold. They return from year to year and repeat the process.
Pennisetum is an ornamental grass commonly referred to as fountain grass. There are several cultivars. 'Hameln' is a perennial cultivar. ' Red Bunny Tails' is an annual cultivar that may perform as a perennial in Z7 - see the link below for more information. It would likely be an annual in my Z6 garden.
Here is a link that might be useful: Pennisetum messiacum