13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Rouge, is that a current picture? My Tuff Stuff petered out long ago. But I noticed all new growth and some buds further back in the stems from the original flowers, so yesterday I snipped all the old flowers off. Curious to see if I get a second bloom this year.
There is an Aroid forum here on GW/Houzz that has had numerous discussions about amorphophallus with a number of very enthusiastic growers. You might want to post on there to to see what those guys have to say and if they can ID.......usually only if they bloom, I think. I'm not sure how distinctive the plants are otherwise.
For some strange reason (as if I couldn't guess - lol!!) this plant seems to be strongly appealing to males :-)
Thank you for yall's replies i will post this on the Aroids forum.
yeah this isn't one of the big box stores they are a rather small store but they do normally have great info on their plants. I just want to make sure i know everything about this plant before i go and spend 45 dollars on it! I've been wanting one of these plants to add to my Carrion flower collection despite the offensive scent they produce.
How much annual rain do you get? The reason I ask is we got heavy rain this spring/early summer and I lost three plants. They form a large taproot and I noticed they were rotted. Two other plants look pretty bad but are coming back. I've had a few growing for years, thought they were indestructible but obviously too wet is not good for them. You might try growing one in a raised spot or a place that drains very well.
They are not at all invasive but I remove the fluttermill seedpods when I'm cleaning in fall, otherwise I'd probably have several more plants. I do get volunteers as a few early pods break open but I remove most of them, the pods stay intact for a long period so its easy to just gather them up and avoid seeding.
I have a typical green leaf Missouri Primrose (Ozark Sundrops) and another Missouri Primrose with blue leaves and lighter creamy yellow flowers. They shut down here when it gets hot but pick back up in fall. The flowers only stay open on cloudy days when it gets hot but all day in early spring.
The silver leaf kind
Silver leaf kind when it gets too hot to bloom. I love the leaf color.
The Native green leaf kind which has deeper yellow flowers shot at night.
Sorry the pic is a little washed-out - never take a photo in the middle of the day. :)
I have seen mite damage in my Echinacea this year and it's so sad. I purchased 3 plants from nurseries and was so excited. I had a bit of money to buy some plants this year and in other years I just couldn't afford it and now I'm just sick at the damage.
I've also noticed that the past two years I had Cheyenne Spirit, two quite large plants, and they didn't come back this spring. I'm not the best at marking my plants and I've noticed that I'm also missing Harvest Moon which bloomed in abundance last year. I still have Secret Affair and Catarina. Secret Affair refuses to "grow up" or spread out. It has stayed the same size for 4 years. I clear out anything that tries to crowd it so it can enlarge, but to no avail.
I also purchased a Double Decker, but it's looking like a regular Echinacea purpurea. There's nothing double about it although there are two full blooms. I purchased it when I was out of town. If the nursery was close I'd take it back, but it doesn't even seem worth the trouble to write or call. I hope they didn't do it on purpose.
Heidi
Sorry to hear about the mite damage, Heidi.
I'm quite confused about the matter. I still have about a dozen Echinacea, having lost many fancy cultivars to coneflower mite up to two years ago. This year, I haven't seen any trace of the mite in our garden or at least I don't think so.
Re 'Double Decker' losing/missing its upper deck: we've had the 'Double Decker' below for years (picture: July 26, 2015). It's been losing it's double deck over that time.
sandyslopes - This is a 15 year old picture but it shows what gardening in a bug shirt and hat looks like! (I now have one with a hood with face protection.) I think I'm the neighbourhood eccentric :-)
Rouge - this was our first attempt ever at reseeding - I wasn't expecting too much success but it seems to have worked well.. I did a lot of reading on various US university Extension web sites. Some of them noted that a common cause of reseeding failing is not mowing soon enough - mow when it gets above 2", so we did that.
Wow! So that's what you meant. You really are covered head to toe. It looks like you're protected from mosquitoes (West Nile Virus here) and ticks while wearing that.
I was right that you are a dedicated gardener to put all that on before going out. The next time I'm feeling like it's too much effort to put on sunscreen and bug spray, I'll think of you in that outfit and get myself into the gardens.
I saw this on the O.Grass forum. Its nearly impossible to ID a grass not blooming. Its also impossible to tell what size that grass is in the picture.
You might try googling different grasses and see if you find something to suit your needs.
New Zealand wind grass, Anemanthele lessoniana (formerly Stipa arundinacea), will provide a similar look and stay about 3'x3'. It is an evergreen species but takes on some rather dramatic bronze and orange colors in late fall with colder weather.
I guess no luck with this question?
I doubt pinching would help since the stalks branch and sprout from the base anyway. I like to prop these up with shrub prunings like butterfly bush twigs. The twigs get stuck into the ground next To the plant and give it something solid to lean on. It's much easier than staking I think.
Here in KC that's pretty typical for mid to late summer, although this year we've had plenty of rain. Two or three years back it was so dry that people were advised to water around their foundations occasionally to try and keep them from shifting due to the shrinking, dried out soil next to them. Around my neighborhood, which is older, a lot of lawns dried out pretty bad and were subsequently invaded with more drought-resistant weeds. I saw a lot of dead conifers around.
Out in the suburbs irrigation systems are common, but to me the better (and much cheaper) strategy is to plant drought-tolerant natives. This has really caught on here in public/commercial plantings, but not so much yet in residential ones.
What about a gravel garden? I've heard that's a good way to plant more drought-tolerant things in the north and east where it's usually wetter. Here's Roy Diblik talking about it:
http://wpt.org/Wisconsin-Gardener/Segments/gravel-gardens-drought-tolerant-gorgeous
Interesting video. We did something a bit similar here, brought in a thick layer of sand and then we added gravel on top of that but not as thick as they did in the video. It made a big difference. The roots love it and its easy to water. I can walk around right after a rain and in winter it makes for good drainage, snow melts very quickly, it raised my climate zone somewhat and its also easy to weed, they pull right out. Supplemental watering is also faster and easy to do, it soaks in deep with no runoff and stays damp longer. Before doing this, the soil would dry out and bake hard as a rock in summer, watering was needed all the time and the plants didn't grow nearly as well.
On the downside, the gravel collects seeds and they germinate better. That can be the good news or the bad, for me its a good thing. Its more difficult to make changes because I have to scrape an area clean of gravel before digging, otherwise I bury it or just can't get the shovel down through it. Its not a real big deal but its a factor.
I don't like gravel hardscapes that are too barren and overly planned. Some of the professionally done 'artistic' ones remind me of an outdoor living room that look like they should get regularly swept with a vacuum cleaner rather than being a place for nature. Its like you'd feel you have to leave it like that to maintain the look the designer intended in the same way people think of professionally hired interior decorating. It looks unnatural, controlling and sterile.
here is an example.. of such:
crocus early spring
tulips later spring
roses june july,
sedums in august ...
and then the fall flowering plants ..
a real good gardener ... plans out.. the progression of flowering.. so there is always something new blooming ... as compared to focusing on a monoculture... that peaks and fades.. all within a week or two ...
ken
yep, I have the same problem with my bleeding hearts... they were yellowing and just turning terribly ugly about a month ago. This is just a characteristic of this plant. So I cut them all down and planted astilbe in their place.