13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

When you cut back your caryopteris in the spring stick a few cuttings in the ground. That's the only reason I still have Sunshine Blue and Dark Knight. Also take cuttings from your neighbors plant and you'll have it too.

That's a good idea. Thanks. I did have a branch that touched the soil root on the variegated one I had first, but they both died the next winter. Today I did find a "Longwood Blue" at the local purveyor, and since it was only five dollars for a quart pot I figured I would try it.

Thanks for sharing! Beautiful. Is that a rose on the right that really changes color as the flowers fade?

Wow. Gorgeous.

Congratulations on your success. Nice to share the excitement of a new gardener.

Great job with the iris. I have lots of half-high transplants this year too. They will be at their peak next year. You can thin out the other side of the clump this fall.

I think that is how long I had it and it exploded the last year. I live next to huge ranches so I am very careful about exotic plants naturalizing because no one other than the cows and the deer are weeding out in these stretches of land..

It is amazing how regional a plant invasiveness can be. I see differences in plants even within 20 miles. Salvia chiquita seeds out like hell on my land but in town on their clay, the seeds never sprout. The plants stay sized moderately. I am on a porous limestone and the things go crazy. I backed my plants off from a slope so the downpours we get do not carry the seed too far.

I usually don't do anything, maybe deadhead the flowers at most. Last year I cut the foliage way back in midsummer to see if it would make them look tidier. They did look nice and neat once they grew back, but it took a while for them to rebound, and in the meantime they looked pretty ratty. I don't think it is worth the effort unless they are really sprawly. You might experiment to see what works for you. They can take the abuse.

I cut mine back last year. The foliage was looking ratty after a few dry spells, so in August sometime, maybe, I just cut off all the ugly foliage which was most of it. Believe it or not, the leaves came right back, healthy and clean looking going into the fall. This spring, they are looking better than any spring I've seen them. So I feel it was a good thing. I will probably do it again this year. They didn't need it right after flowering though, it was later in the summer. I would do it anytime the plant was looking worse for wear.

I don't know how seeds will work for you, but it might be worth a shot. Here are baby pictures of mine, three plants started from seed last spring. The larger leaf is about six inches across and I'm surprised any of them survived my neglect, let alone grew as well as they did.
The seeds were from the NARGS seed exchange.

I already checked out Fraser Thimble farm and it will cost me 40 dollars with shipping, A little too much for my pocketbook right now for one plant. Think I'm going to wait until early 2015 when other nursery may have it stocked again.
I will check out the NARGS website in the meantime for seed.

Your infiltrator looks like campanula glomerata. Very pretty in bloom but quite the spreader. If you figure out how to control it let me know since I've got my own problems here with the same plant.
Stupidly I'm waiting until after it blooms to eradicate.... But I've said that for the last three years (and about 200 square feet ago)

Your 'Pinks' are Armeria maritima aka Thrift or Sea Pink. Pinks by itself refers to various Dianthus. Armeria needs full sun and an open position since it is native to sea cliffs. So the Campanula glomerata needs to come out of there asap. You might have to dig it up to extricate the Campanula roots.

Mine didn't spread at all over several years. It remained in a clump unlike the other plants you mentioned. It didn't spread by seeds either.

There was crown vetch there when we moved in, it was there for many years and I never found it anywhere else even though the property was very unkempt and barely mowed for a few years before we bought it. It was originally cut many years ago as a boat launch, although the erosion from the lake had made it a ramp to a 10' drop off. We received permission to recut it in because it was existing, and as part of that we replanted more crown vetch as it is an accepted form of slope stabilization. Originally they wanted stone.

I keep reading how Liriope Spicata will spread like crazy. I can only find Liriope Muscari of course, which supposedly doesn't spread very much at all.

Thanks everyone! That's very helpful. I've decided to do it. Already trimmed one clump and I am very happy with how it looks.

One of the reasons I grow Siberians is for the foliage, which not only stays lovey through the summer but turns a good yellow in the fall. I wouldn't want to cut mine, even though it's such a pain to cut out the old bloom stalks.

Perfect! Thanks!

I noticed on the link it says something about the plant having a darker color in rich soil... maybe that's what mine are missing since I don't remember it being as dark a pink. The foliage is a really nice color though.
....wait, I just tried to find a picture and realized we had a really late freeze which burned all the blooms. maybe I'll be impressed this year! In any case I should give it some food and see if that helps the colors.

Looks more like Rudbeckia fulgida to me, probably Goldsturm.

I have Goldstrum and looks just like mine.

Um, AfterMidnight has hit the nail on the head, I think. Last year was a storming year for fruit of all kinds.....but this year, combined with a weird winter lacking in winter chill, we are seeing apples with hugely reduced fruit set, cherries which will drop the stunted crop over the next week or so, and redcurrants with no fruit at all. This is called biennial bearing....and often happens as trees and shrubs get older (although some varieties such as Cox pippin apples, have an innate tendency to have good years and bad years). Legumes, like laburnum and brooms are very much affected by this trait so don't fret, the tree looks perfectly healthy, this is just a natural hiatus.

Thanks! Oh well, with something so pretty it's worth waiting for. Once every six years - so be it :)

I don't mess with my dianthus either. That's part of the point to me - it can do it's thing and I don't have to put any time or energy into upkeeping it.

When my dianthus finish I cut all the flower stems off down to the level of the foliage with grass shears. That way I have nice blue mounds in summer without stems sticking up which I do not care for. They bloom again in fall or will put out a few in summer if we get rain. I call that deadheading. I just did this last week, it took only a few minutes. I guess you could say the plants look "sheared". I do not ever trim the foliage.

Shearing is what you do to shrubs when you want a thick neat hedge, an artificial shape or a dense plant. Usually you do this by taking the hedge clippers to it and cut the whole plant flush into a row, ball, square, triangle-- whatever. Hollies are often trimmed this way. Some shrubs and plants look terrible treated this way and should be cut back instead since this forces all the growth on the tips and the middle of the plant suffers from lack of sunlight. In my opinion this is the most unnatural & artificial thing you can do to any plant. Corporate offices often have this done in formal plantings.

To cut back you cut out dead branches (or stems) or ones that are too long, crisscrossed, or older branches (or stems) to thin out the plant and trim some of outer stems at a leaf node for shaping. This leaves a natural plant shape and growth habit.

In early spring or late winter cutting back means cutting off all dead growth from the previous year on perennials and ornamental grasses, often people do it when they see new growth starting at the crown. In summer, some plants that get top heavy or lanky will benefit from cutting back 1/3 of the top growth to stimulate new blooms and leaves. Herbs are commonly cut back in this way around mid season.

Many if not mot nearly all my Digitalis seedlings froze to death this past winter & I'm near the Chesapeake Bay, in a warmer zone, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a very severe winter! Only survivors were those from germination in very early spring, or from the year before.

'Dalmation' is an F1 hybrid from my understanding & that usually means the seeds produced, revert to a weaker plant, differing somewhat from the original crossing of two different parent plants. Horrible germination, was my experience... But the quality of T & M seeds seems to have gone downhill, over the years..

wouldnt it depend if you bought a first year seedling.. or a second year mature plant.. which would not come back???

i found.. that if i wanted seedlings and current flowers ... i had to buy a biennial.. two years in a row... to get the cycle going ... not two in one season ... in theory.. seedlings wont bloom the first year ...

rate of seedling emergence is highly variable.. as per micro climate ..... all you can do is wait and see if you find any ... unless you already weeded them out... lol.. been there.. done that ...

ken