13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Cheryl, I was kidding about the shooting. Rednecks do that to Prairie Dogs here LEGALLY for sport if you can imagine. Its sickening. Most of the reasons P.D.s are fair game is based on false notions & ignorance. They are an important part of the prairie ecosystem. There is a large group with that mindset in these parts that approaches such problems with the solution of "just get the guns out". They have gun racks in the back of their pick-ups.
I was wondering if your cars had been hit yet . A friend of mine keeps his hood open to discourages them thinking the car is a place to hide from snakes. He says that works, just hearsay repeated. I don't know if that is for sure. He has lived out in the non developed desert for a LONG time in one of those abundant old Hippiedom areas that NM is famous for.
mine are mostly mahogany too-as i weed them out by the dozens i keep thinking-maybe this is the one with the great color, oh well into the mulch. the echinacea blooms a month before the others so the seed may be true-next spring. temps this week in the 100's with humidity at 5% or lower so survival mode here as well. reno has had 5 in. of precip. in the past 2 years with very hot summers so drought is in uncharted territory-expect sand dunes and true desert. :)
david, I love this landscape. I always get in trouble on the subject but a wide panoramic view like this with no trees, no fences for roosting & seed dropping and endless vast sky is like heaven on earth to me. You can post as many photos as you want on this thread, I never get tired of seeing this kind of landscape. That looks virgin. There is very little original landscape left here that remains as it once was.
Love the results and the planting areas around the patio. It definitely is a selling feature, but you'll surely enjoy it until then.
For anyone with a sloped yard, this would be a great project to copy ... wish we were younger. (Of course, wealthier would work too.)
Molie
OK, I am a geologist and I was thinking it was limestone. I've never been fooled by cultured stone before, so kudos to you and your crew!
They did a good job with the big slabs, which are hard to get right. Impressive work, I love the combination of rocks and plants, and this looks like a really nice part of your landscape. Thanks for sharing the pics!
Creeping sedums, spreading sedums, I have one that forms a low growing circle. Dwarf Shasta daisy Snow Lady, dwarf daylily, alpine strawberry, false lamium Herman's Pride, coreopsis rosea, hosta, 'Golden Edger'", short salvias, s. Purple Rain has a long bloom time with deadheading. It has a relaxed habit cascading along the edge of the bed. I have my long driveway bed edged with nepeta Tiltch. After first bloom it is cut back for repeat bloom.
I use these and many of the ones others have suggested. My favorite are various dianthus, especially the mat forming ones. One variety is half an inch high and looks like a carpet of bloom with its airy one inch high blossoms.
Are you just removing the roses altogether, or will you be replacing them with something? Maybe something tall and eye-catching but somewhat narrow, like rudbeckia Herbstonne, or a bit shorter, like rudbeckia Henry Eilers or heliopsis Summer Nights (sorry, I can only seem to recall yellow flowers at the moment!). Or some tall lilies, if you don't have a problem with red lily leaf beetle. Although lilies do truly have a narrow window of interest, I suppose; I love them but on second thought would not have them as a single aesthetic element.
I have to say, I'm still thinking of some other kind of evergreen for winter interest....
I also wanted to say that I really love my deutzia, and just posted about it recently. I think you'll like it if you go with one!
Dee
Dee I will be moving them...to where..I'm not sure yet. I usually plant some kind of a tall grass with annuals in the pots behind the hostas for some height. This year I just put in my (surprisingly) over wintered Bougainvillea. They are getting ready to bloom soon :)
I would really like to get a few deutzia, my beds are pretty much full now but I'm sure I could find a spot for them.
Thanks!
That one is more tropical than the E. herbacea. There are red E. Herbacea (who is one parent of the X bidwidii (sp?)). But you would be on the edge and having a sand y soil and not wet feet in winter might be a necessity there. Texas Ranger has added huge amounts of sand to her clay and totally changed the character of her soil. But that is a bunch of work. One needs to add about 1 part sand , and one part gravel and one part compost mixed into the 1part native clay soil. She said it did wonders to her heavy gumbo soil .
Actually, we dumped the sand right on top of the clay about 3" deep more or less, some places are much deeper. We covered it all in river rock gravel with larger round rocks lining the edges. When I dug a hole I'd scrape away the gravel & use a $1.99 bag of top soil to mix in each time I planted special things, I got about two to three plants per bag. I've built it up and added plants so gradually, it wasn't that hard to do. For grasses, I just dug down and mixed the base clay and sand by turning it over a few times.
The sand was very cheap, a dump truck load doesn't cost much but buying bags of play sand or concrete sand at Home Depot is expensive.
The volunteer plants just come up and root through the sand down to the cruddy soil below. Water soaks in real fast and it stays moist longer and its easy to edit since the plants dig and pull right out of it with clean roots practically. Its real easy to work in. I have read in many places this is a bad practice but its worked like a charm here for growing native plants. My clay isn't the kind thats sticky, its hard dirt thats heavy in clay content but the gradual downhill slope makes the drainage not an issue.
I guess you could call this the Cheap Lazy Man's Method.
Its hard to tell but that slope in the photo looks steeper so anything added on top looks like it might run right off.
My Baptisia has been great this year, although I'd love to see more blooms. It is currently setting seed pods. It does sit on the northwest side of the house and probably only gets 2-3 hours of afternoon sun. But I'm very happy with its shape... in fact, I'll be forced to move a Sarah Bernhardt peony because it's getting pushed out by the Baptisia. Oh, it is the Purple Smoke variety.
My 10 year old clump flowered okay... Though much less then years prior. The newer variety I planted just last year bloomed great... So who knows.
As a side note on flopping... I gave up the peony rings years ago and just remove the seed pods.... Thick stems included... After flowering. The plant hasn't flopped since. You give up the neat look of the black seed pods, but it's worth it to me plus I don't get a ton of seedlings popping up everywhere in the spring like before.
luckyladyslipper, you just reminded me that I have done the same thing.... TWICE. Twice with the same plant! I planted a - I don't even remember what it was! - in my friend's garden, and then "weeded" it out that fall. I didn't realize till the next spring that I did that. Got another one of the plants, planted it, and once again, "weeded" it out!
The second time I pulled it out, I realized what I had done immediately. I replanted it and babied it all year, but it died. Which made me wonder why if you pull a weed and just toss it back on the top of the bed it will re-root and grow spectacularly, but why this plant, lovingly replanted and tended to, died.....
Dee
Personally, I find nightshade rather attractive ... always have.
Don't know how many plants I 've lost up at my folks' place because my dad decided to weed.