13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Thanks 'mnwsgal'.
It easily survived this past winter. Due to the garden's location both plants were under almost 4 feet of protective snow from about January 1 till March 1! (Kind of like being in a comfy cosy igloo ;))
I will shear them back significantly once flowering is done.
Ha! Ken! Remember I bought this house from a landscape architect! I can't take credit for his brilliant designs. Frankly it's just about a full time job trying to maintain it all.
This is my third spring in the house and I am just finally starting to be confident enough to yank things. It's taken me 2 years of observing to learn what I like and what I don't. Then I forget what things are each spring and learn all over again. I've got to start keeping a journal. I'll attach some more from last summer in a minute.
got it from campy??? .. and bobs your uncle .. lol ...
i like the idea ... of chopping them in descending order from the center .... it would be cool to give it a layer cake form ...
they should probably be divided in early spring.. or later fall .. if you do it now... they might take some hard stress... but probably make it ... TAKE A SHOVEL FULL OFF THE BACK SIDE ... AND EXPERIMENT ... the more soil.. the less stresses.. for sure its not a bare root project ... just throw a shovel full of soil from elsewhere back into the hole you leave ...
i would do that.. and then chop them so the disturbed roots dont have too much foliage to sustain.. while they get pumping again ...
this really is great plant.. in sufficient volume.. for you to try all kinds of things with ... it will help you get over your fear of doing things ...
and it makes great sense about the chelsea flower show.. but i am still thinking lamb chops... see link ..
try cutting a piece.. putting it in a small pot with damp media.. and putting a baggie over it.. in full shade.. or in the house .... and see if you can get it to root.. not that you need more.. lol .. but just for the sake of trying it ... or google for how to do it ....
ken
ps: i have actually.. never tasted a lamb chop ....
Here is a link that might be useful: now this is from the way back machine ... lol
You can chop all those, Bluebird. Essentially, any tall, late flowering dicot (it does not work with monocots) since the flowering buds will respond to the chop as if munched by a passing herbivore or careless strimmer - it is sometimes called pinching back and, in chrysanthemum culture, 'stopping'. Yes, the flower buds will definitely initiate....the key to doing any chopping back is to do it before seeds have set. Once that happens, the plant considers it's job done and will quickly fade away to conserve energy for future root growth. Although we so it in our short, cool summers, the longer, hotter summers of the US are an even better bet. Bear in mind that the resulting flowers will be smaller (but often appear much more floriferous) and the flowering will be a couple of weeks later than usual.
Yes, Bluebird and Ken, you can do this piecemeal - shaping the plant so that some stems are left on while others are cut to varying shorter heights. This will actually lengthen the bloom time as flowers will be opening in stages.
You can be fairly brutal and cut the plants back by as much as half (especially phlox and asters) but a third is usually the amount removed. As always, when pruning (which is all this is) bump up the water and even a top dressing of balanced fertiliser (but maybe a tad heavier on the potassium ratio).
I have been out with my shears chopping back the asters and achillea, along with some eryngoes which tend to flop over.
this is one of my nightmares. The tap root is so deep I can't just pull it out. Even spraying does not seem to get rid of it very well. another one I thought I would love is Eupatorium 'chocolate' dark leaves and white flowers in September. Then it reseeds green all over the landscape.
I had landscape fabric under my front landscaping for 28 years with no issues, and no weed problem. It had "rock bark " whatever that somewhat bark-colored light weight rock is over it. It was a good quality (very heavy) fabric. Shrubs grew fine.
I'd have it done again even though when I redid the front I had to rip parts of it out where I wanted to plant. (Wanted to plant rows of hostas, hydrangeas, etc. in front of the evergreen shrubs.) Ripping it out wasn't fun, but it was simple compared with 28 years of replacing mulch and weeding.
I'm not talking about the aesthetics of stone...simply that in some cases, a well-installed landscape fabric/stone combo works great for weed suppression.
mums bloom in summer...
we 'force' them to bloom in fall.. by continually heading them back ..
they also tend to stand up with that system.. rather than grow as single stems.. 4 foot tall and fall over ...
track down a stem.. and see that at every leaf node.. there is a bud.. teh bottom most being simply a bump ...
snip above any bud.. and that and the one below it.. will become active... its the same theory as deadheading ... except we do it before it flowers ...
all cutting.. can most likely be rooted.. rather easily.. if you need a couple hundred more ...
so you have one stem.. snip.. in 4 week you have two or 3 ... snip all.. and in 4 weeks or so ...you have 3 ... you have 9 .. 4 moire weeks.. 27 .. is my math holding up ...
if you can keep track.. and see how many weeks it takes to rebud.. say 6 weeks...
then you can target say 10/1 .... and count back 6 weeks... and add a week or two for them to slow down in cool fall ... so ... make you last pinch in waht... mid august???? ..
simple as pie... lol .. mmm ...pie....
ken
ps: an even simpler method ... but more math .. when it gets to 6 inches.. cut it back to 3... then when it grow 6 more.. to 9 inches.. cut it back to 6 ... etc ... thats how you make those big fuzzy balls of mum.. that dont collapse ..... for being too tall ... now.. where the pie ...
The sex life of hollies is complicated. Generally speaking, they are dioecious, meaning that the male and the female 'bits and pieces ' are on separate plants. However, there are several species that are (ready?) polygamodioecious so that a female tree may have some male flowers or some of the female flowers will contain male organs.
It is usually advisable to have an appropriate male pollenizer when growing hollies. Knowing the kind of holly you have can be a big clue. Any idea?
By the way, male hollies have flowers, too. They look very much like the female flowers other than having anthers instead of the pistil. For best bloom, a plant needs to be healthy.
Ginkgo does grow slowly, but that seems a bit too slow. How big was it when you bought it? Is it well mulched.
I have a ginkgo I planted in 2005. It was about 4 ft or so. A crooked little thing. It's beautiful now, not sure how tall - 10-12'. Grew slowly but it balanced itself out by growing a twig down near the base. EVERYONE told me to cut it off. I'm so glad I didn't. That branch grew into a big branch that made it much more symmetrical. Love my ginkgo. I make sure no lawn chemicals. Make sure it gets slow waiter source for an hour if we have a dry spell. Fertilize with Treetone or iron in the fall if I remember.
Maybe you do have a dwarf. If healthy fertilize a little. What does everyone else think?
Finally, here are some pictures. Long views near my garage don't do the viburnum justice though.
Here is a link that might be useful: UVO (Unidentified Viburnum Object)
For me the champion for dry shade (grown under two river birches with extremely dense surface roots) is the geranium macrorrhizum followed by canadian wild ginger (asarum canadense). and epimedium grandiflorum All are unattractive to deer or rabbit. Unfortunately only the ginger is listed as hardy to zone3, the others appear to top out at zone 4.
But Epimedium do better in dry shade than anything I know.
I did a bit of an experiment last summer. I planted 2 Geranium macrorrhizum and 2 epimediums in a most inhospitable location ie within inches of a water, nutrient sucking maple.
As of this spring the Geraniums are more than holding their own while the epimediums did not return (the open areas between the Geraniums).
This post was edited by rouge21 on Tue, May 20, 14 at 10:18
Some plants yes, others no. Plants grown up against the house seem to most require it. Not really surprising when you consider that they are only getting good sun from one direction and tend to lean a bit that way to begin with.
Lupine is a bit of a trial at my folks' place. They bloom beautifully, but the when their sprinkler goes on or a good rain comes along, the flower heads get so heavy with water and the flowers that they flop over ... sometimes snap completely.
For my gasplant, I cut off the pointy ends from a tomato cage, invert the cage over the gasplant (hopefully before it has leafed out) and then shape the metal pieces I cut off into "U's" to anchor the cage to the ground. Works like a charm and it stays in place indefinitely.
Too cold there?
I pulled it all up from my Mom's yard, I kill Vinca, but I haven't been to your house.
Growlove, that's how I always start a new bed! If you wait until the grass is definitely dead to pierce the smother, you'll have less grass in the planting holes, if that's why it's there. It's hard to wait, isn't it? Could just be from seeds dropped there already, previous years or earlier that year. Mowing with the chute facing away from beds helps too, as well as a border, like bricks, landscape timbers, something easy to trim against or drive mower tires along. If no new seeds are dropped and it can't creep in from lawn, grass won't reappear in beds, except the very occasional sprout. Pull as soon as you see it the first time, while easy to do.
Jim, you have posted in the conversations part of the Perennial forum, space for things discussed that do not pertain to gardening. You aren't being ignored, just not seen.
The regular Perennials forum (reached by clicking on Return to Perennials above) or even Growing from Seed would have been better choices.
Helenium grows best in full sun. There are many types, grown as both annuals or perennials, but neither need stratifying (period of moist chill) before they will germinate. Seeds will do best surface sown or just barely covered, some light may be beneficial to germination. Keep seed bed moist. At temps averaging approx 70 F, Helenium seed germinates in 10-21 days.
This post was edited by morz8 on Mon, May 19, 14 at 12:36
Ow, that hurts!
Splint up the broken flower stems with chopsticks or something and wait a couple of weeks. Then trim off the dead parts of the plant and let them keep as much live material as possible. They need the leaves top make food to store in the rhizomes
there is an iris forum .... lots of great experts there ... if you want to double check us... i usually dont hang there.. because of pix envy .. i want them all ....
but flora is spot on ... even damaged leaves.. photosynthesize.. to store energy in the rhiz, for next year ... so leave them be.. until the usual time to cut them back ...
ma nature damaged them enough.. no piling on ... lol ...
ken
Hpny2, what size do you let them get to before you finally transplant? My seedlings are so small right now. They have true leaves, but are just tiny. Do you usually wait until fall when they're a bit beefier? I've been debating on when to plant them out.
cimicifuga (actaea), vernonia, begonia grandis, gentian, some late daylilies, hosta plantaginia, Japanese anemone,
coneflowers, rudbeckia, eupatorium,
Caryopteris clandonensis/blue mist shrub
Chelone lyonii/turtlehead (pink)
Chelone obliqua/turtlehead (white)
Tricyrtis hirta/toad lily