13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
So pretty and such a welcome sight after the long, cold, snowy winter that seemed to last a full 6 months. The only things blooming for me at the moment are lungwort 'Raspberry Splash,' fern-leaf bleeding heart, Virginia bluebells, 'Jack Frost' brunnera and a NOID azalea my folks planted 20-30 years ago. Still, any color other than white is welcome & a sight for winter-weary eyes.
Kevin, I have an obsession with anemonella. Absolutely love it and pick up more varieties whenever I can. I'll get my butt outside tomorrow for some pics to add to yours. Just picked another one up this past weekend.
So many obsessions, so little money....LOL!
Oh,yes, I know none of these are Bowles Mauve - was using that as an example of sterility in wallflowers. Mine are still cheerfully flowering but have not set seed pods yet so I expect you are quite correct.
Mmmm, Desirai - there are some interesting hybrids around, so why not have a go yourself?. Some of them have quite odd colouring. I have one unfortunate specimen - a pasty affair with bland flowers which mutate from an apricot colour to a rather pallid purple.....and to cap it all, it has variegated leaves so has a feeble nature. This one will be leaving the garden this year. Love the orange though.
This post was edited by campanula on Thu, May 15, 14 at 18:20
you will love your Allium 'Millenium'. It is a beautiful, very low maintenance and extremely easy to please garden plant. And yes, the flowers do not form seed but produce huge amounts of nectar that bees and butterflies will flock to.
With this glowing first hand endorsement I made the always hard decision to remove 2 perennials. Specifically Blue Cushion lavender. They did make it through this difficult winter but there was lots of winter kill on each plant and their performance during the growing season was never outstanding. Anyways in place I planted two Millenium. (And now that I think of it these are the first two perennial plantings for me in 2014).
I cut lilacs about when they show color and are within two days of opening. I want to enjoy the fragrance as soon as the first blossom opens. I don't have experience with viburnum. Though, I have now planted three of them, so may cut them in the future. I'll be interested what others say.
Martha
they are geranium himalayense pink. I took the pic to show them the condition per email. I'm glad I did and I'm not the only one who thinks they look bad.
I will take your advice and may give hallson gardens a try next season if I can find room for more plants. I found out about garden watchdog just recently. I'm very new to gardening and I am definatelly learning alot.
Thanks again.
I am also a fan of bark mulch. On all of my perennials. About 1-2" thick. Scratch the surface if the ground with a hand rake before you apply it. You will be amazed at how the soil "eats" the mulch by the end of the season. If you buy a good quality mulch it is fantastic for amending the quality of the soil...particularly here where the soil is naturally a very dense clay. Also my worms love mulch. I think the take it as a personal challenge to eat it all up by the time winter is here.
I usually mulch before Memorial Day. I find that it's best to get a jump on the weeds. My perennials pop up right through the mulch. I have never bothered to mark them. If you use cardboard though it's probably a good idea.
Nothing wrong with ordinary G.pratense....although it does tend to get a bit mildewy and has a fleeting bloom season. I do have (lots) of it - I guess I should have said that violaceae plenum (along with himalayense Birch Double) is the only earlyish variety I would buy.
Mrs K C is a real winner at dusk - it gets that moon touched, luminous electric glow.
Great to know that about the color of "Mrs Kendall Clark'. I went ahead and splurged on some seeds from Jelitto, since they offer MKC as part of their Gold Nugget collection. I thought it would be nice to have geraniums germinate quickly and uniformly for a change, lol!
The way you describe the growth habit of G. pratense, it almost sounds like our native G. maculatum (except for the mildew part). G. maculatum is one of my favorite wildflowers.
scent on all types of plants.. vary year to year ..
e.g. ..... after this horrible winter.. i have a low lilac flower production .. but the the flowers it has are stinkin up the joint big time ... lol ..
temps also matter ... on a coldish day ... little scent might be noticed ... but on a warmer day ... it can be blinding ... and humidity in the air really makes it blast off ...
and also .. subject to temps... flowers can fail faster some years.. as compared to others ... in other words.. if the flower opens in a heat wave.. it seems like a day or two later.. it already is developing that rot smell ... but in a very cool spring.. they can last a week or two ...
so.. there are so many variables.. in any given season.. that .. presuming it is the variety named ... aroma will vary ...
ken
Not sure if you have the same problem I have... Peonies don't smell much to me and hardly as good as people say they should. My mom grows a lot of them and swoons over the fragrance. Standing in the same garden , next to her, I can't smell it wafting and have to smell the bloom itself. And that isn't even a great smell to me! It's very weird , because I love her lilacs , roses all smell great, gardenia , heliotrope ... I love all of those. But peonies , just don't smell much .
mine came up right on que. . . just today I put the support around them to help keep them upright. . . good luck. .
Thank you Rouge, Betty and Babera!
So a status update for my two TS: one of them did survive and now has good new growth (~ 2 inches tall). Another one right next to it still has nothing showing up. So after knowing your experience, I will keep my fingers crossed and hope it may still be alive (and be patient...)
Vivian