13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

Creeping Jenny -- ... I frankly was hoping for it to be denser

==>>> again ... you are fixated on instant gratification ...

in 3 to 5 years... your view on this charming little plant .. which is focused on world domination ... might be a little different than .. hoping it was a little more aggressive.. lol ..

regardless.. it takes favorably to round up ... lol

just for giggles.. start a new post about CJ... and ask for the forums observations ... title it something like: creeping jenny -- friend or foe

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Ken, forget-me-nots can also be perennial. I bought some many years ago and I love them. The 'Myosotis scorpioides' is the perennial. They've spread, but not aggressively. One of my favorites.

Kat

Here is a link that might be useful: Perennial 'Forget-Me-Nots'

It probably got pollinated by the others you have.

I was walking past the Arizona Apricot plant yesterday and two new flowers have emerged, both blooms of the original Arizona Apricot color. Now I have a mixture of both the Arizona Sun flower and the Arizona Apricot flower growing out of the same plant.

We are getting some much needed rain and will continue to get it into early next week. After the rain leaves, I want to dig up the plant and hope to be able to separate the Apricot part from the Arizona Sun part. At lease I know the original plant is still alive and growing now.

Linda

They don't need much 'care' as such. Certainly no fertiliser and not much water. They like a good summer baking and they'll flower in late summer autumn. The leaves appear later.

I am not sure if it's the same plant as suggested above with a different name, but I've grown a plant that looks like this called Lycoris squamigera, common name naked ladies. They put up leaves in the spring, the leaves die back, and in late July or early August they send up flowers. I like them a lot.

Martha - that's a wonderful idea! I threw out seedballs over the wild part of our property in May- June. Mine were all grasses and wildflowers which I'm hoping will take root. A friendly GW member (hi Tex!) graciously sent me a TON of seeds. All our rain comes in summer, so this is the right time for seeding.

Having a box of seedballs handy to throw out when you pass abandoned areas or weedy lots is a great way to increase native wildflowers and grasses.

Cheryl

The Slothful Method:

I'm just lazy enough to simplify this method of guerilla warfare. I can't see spending a whole day making balls and I'm too cheap to buy clay so what I do is bag up all my dead heads into paper grocery sacks, smush each one which is filled to the gills & packed hard like a pillow with the top rolled hard. I stack & store them for battle.

I'm even too lazy to clean the seeds so its stems, leaves etc in there with all the deadheads and zillions of seeds I collect when trimming down in late fall & early winter. I then take these to waste areas or any ugly spot in need and dump them all around on the ground, usually when I know its going to rain the next day.

Surely out of all those seeds something will take hold, grow and later reseed itself even without the bit of clay and other ingredients in the balls. Otherwise, they'd all be going to the landfill where I've already 'donated' huge amounts of various species of cactus pads to be pulverized and buried. Any piece of pad will take root and grow so if I was awful & really mean I could easily create some areas here into little mini hells but don't think it would be a good idea at all to create thick groves of cactus so I'm very careful about disposal on those.

Jadeite--on that hostile barren caliche biggest, bad-assed "hell strip" you have to deal with, meaning the dry danger zone on your property where the pack rats rule the roost, seed balls would definitely be a must. I imagine a seed ball could lay on the ground for years before a favorable opportunity presented itself. I'd even think about doubling the dirt/clay part just to give the little guys a bit of protection & help to put out a root in the beginning in some actual soil. Here in wheat country, seeds germinate a bit too easily & stuff grows a bit too well so I can afford to be lazy. We've had a lot of rain this year and a machete would be needed in many areas along the sides of the roads just to get in there through the thick tall grass, underbrush and trees.

how do you make a full sun, perennial/mixed garden not feel restless and unfocused

I have seen mass plantings which of course show organization. A very memorable one I saw was at the U Guelph Arboretum a few years ago was a sea of Eryngium. In bloom it was stunning but past its prime it was yucky.

Also I find that symmetry in a border regardless of what comes behind it seems to give organization to the whole.

Yes, I think effectively what you're saying - and I am coming to accept now I think - is that I have to stop seeking for some 'natural' answer and find a way to apply the 'rules' to make the sunny garden feel more coherent and calm. I do like things like symmetry (there is some there but it's often fairly subtle/half-hidden), shaping negative space (e.g. the grass path between the main bed and the 'moat' bed), and strong lines (e.g. the brick edging and the paths in/around the beds). I had a 'light bulb' moment when looking at the garden this morning - a good part of the reason the front garden feels particularly restless and unfocused this year is due to the loss of the big butterfly bush! The height that added to the south end of the bed was important as a balance to the tall cedar clump at the north end of the bed, and also kept the height of the plants from being too monotonous - with that bush gone, most of the rest of the things are all in the 3-4' tall range. Eventually the Weigela florida 'Variegata' might get tell enough to provide the missing balance - but it might not! I need to think of what I could plant there that would get about 8' tall and could be treated as a quasi-tree... Hmmm... Anything come to mind....?

Rouge - you were interested in the patch of old-fashioned garden mums in the north driveway border. Here is a picture of it in bloom October 12 last year:

They need to be kept very short up until early July when I stop cutting them back and let them set flowerbuds. The stems are weak so they're very floppy without the pinching back. They still eventually flop over with the weight of the blooms, but not until late - they have a long bloom period. You can see them in the background (behind the pots waiting to be moved into the garage for winter storage) in this rather messy picture from Nov. 10 last year :

Angelina is definitely vigorous! But so easy to pull so not a big deal imo.

Sedum cauticola 'Lidakense' (nice foliage and flower colour)
Sedum sieboldii 'Mediovariegatum' (nice bright red fall foliage colour in addition to the pink flower.)
Sedum spurium 'Tricolor'
I also use 'Angelina' under some conifers. If they get enough light, they can look almost 'orange yellow' in late spring.

I own "Caramel" and the leaves are definitely not that crinkled. Here's a picture of mine:

Yeah their not glossy either but the colors match!

I probably just have to order up a few. I stopped at the nursery and he said he doesn't have it and couldn't remember if he had it but could order it, lol.

In partial shade/dappled shade for me, the nasty, awful, greedy rabbits have not touched:

Ferns
Hellebores
Geranium macrorrhizum and hybrids
Geranium maculatum
Stylophorum diphyllum
Pycnanthemum muticum (in the sunnier areas)
Thalictrum
Columbines

Plants that they love to target:

Phlox stolonifera
Phlox divaricata
Aster cordata (but not Aster divaricata)
Geranium phaeum

Keep in mind however that if hungry enough, rabbits will eat and destroy ANYTHING, regardless of what books have to say. Even if it is something supposedly lethal.

Marthastoo, what did you use as bait in you havahart trap? We tried a trap too, but have caught nothing. The rabbits are everywhere and seem to be laughing at our efforts while they continue to eat the garden plants, especially anything new.

Here is the third "Ieniemienie" flowering nicely and still my "Hot Lips" has yet to flower (although all my chelones are looking very healthy). So as a preliminary evaluation of "Ieniemienie" it does appear to bloom much sooner than other chelones and does stay quite short as advertised ie 12" tops.

UPDATE

My 3 "Ieniemienie" plants have grown lots in this their second season in our garden with the largest plant now 2 feet high and 32" across! (So definitely shorter than a regular Chelone but just as large in width)

And again this cultivar will bloom well before my favourite Chelone "Hotlips" as today I see the pink of flowers soon to come.

Does anyone else have this more compact form?

The yellow one is St. John's Wort
St. John's Wort

But to determine which species of Hypericum (St John's Wort) we need a picture of some leaves, stems and full plant. Or try is over on Name That Plant for a more specific id.

Thank you for the suggestion, I will consider it. The page you linked mentions the leaf rot for the species, and I think my problem is that they are not truly in full sun (just in one of the sunniest spots I have), which exacerbates the problem.

I have it's twin.

As an experiment, you might try planting some of the bits and bobs you pull up when cleaning, as an edging plant in a larger mixed planting pot. That's what I did a few years ago, and after the first year of not looking so great, mine has turned back into the beautiful plant I remember when I purchased it many, many years ago.

It could be many reasons mine has transformed, but I think the main thing it likes is the light potting mix, compared to actual soil that compacts over time. It's on the edge of a planted wheelbarrow, a pretty well drained spot compared to normal conditions here. A spot I previously had trouble with long term plantings due to getting too dry year round.

Worth a try.

This post was edited by plaidbird on Thu, Jul 24, 14 at 22:34