13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Would love to have any and all visit the beautiful state of KY. I am in Louisville and the gardening is might fine! Four seasons,high humidity,lots of sunshine and adequate moisture.I am not familiar withWallingford, but I am sure it is a friendly place to live. Hope you decide on KY. lesley
Update: I did end up making a large flower bed around a tree in the front and planted lots of the "periwinkle" AKA catharanthus roseus/Madagascar periwinkle/annual vinca thanks to my very generous neighbor. She also gave me lots of sees she swept from her sidewalks to "sprinkle" to get more!
Seeing my flower bed makes me long for warmer weather!!! I did notice some green starting to emerge!
Vinca Minor is just great where you don't plan to grow anything else. It is pretty and smothers out everything in its path. It will travel into your lawn also unless you put in barriers.
It is everygreen and loves both shade and sun. It has a place for sure. Just not every place!
:-) all good ideas and thoughts. Ken is right about using the space for walking and cleaning, yet I always walk between plants anyway. mxk3, my gutters are fine, but i guess that the rain water overflowing is due to stuff accumulated in the gutter which had not been cleaned for years. We just cleaned them last fall, so the drippings should be less now. However, it's very ugly to have gravel underneath the mulch exposed and to form a linear path, due to the drips washing the mulch away. That's why I am trying to plant there. Thanks to TexasRanger for suggesting some plants.
I'm just thankful now that most of the major snow piles here have melted. Hopefully the puddling water gets absorbed soon. Mud on the carpeting in the back room the dogs come in is a pain to clean but its an ugly, old, dark blue-green-sort of color (its awful) so I'm not stressing much on making it perfect... I'll be ripping it out soon enough anyway. And frankly, I gave up on mopping the kitchen floor after they'd come in each time. Its too much - I just do it at the end of the day if its muddy. I'll be so happy when all of this is gone and we can go out there again!
David, I am not sure where you are, but I really wouldn't consider your butterfly bush half-hardy where you are unless it's one of the ones that is only hardy to zone 6 or you had no snow along with subzero temperatures. I had one for several years here (until I moved, so it may well still be where I planted it.) It died down to the snow line, I pruned it in spring when it started pushing buds so that I knew what was still living, and it grew back to 6 feet every year. An easy plant to care for.
IME if there is good snow cover, most things will survive below the snow line since it doesn't get much below freezing. It's only above the snowline or if there are a lot of freeze-thaw cycles in spring that cause heaving that you need to worry about survival.
Those are some nice phlox SunnyB, and hmacflower, that yellow peony is great, is it Bartzella? I love peonies, but just don' have enough room to give to them for the other 50 weeks of the year, so I try to hold back.
Unless you garden with small kids, most people dig with dull shovels. I put a nice sharp edge on mine and wow, what a difference. Makes digging up grass and digging in general half the work. Also I like to use a reciprocating saw with a long blade on it to divide the woody part of grasses. Saws through fairly easily, and saves my back.
In defense of grasses, there are many superb ornamental grasses that are a piece of cake to trim in late winter. Steer clear of the Euro and Asian imports that will inevitably die out in the centers and need regular dividing like Miscanthus and Pampas. Opt for the Panicums anywhere in the US or the Sacaton's and Muhly's in the mid to southwest if you need a big grass, the leaves are not sharp edged. Muhly's often stay almost evergreen here.
There are many lovely medium and small ornamental varieties that make for low maintenance choices, far more attractive for a grass effect in my opinion than the lanky, weedy, grass-like foliage which is "not worth the brief period of flowers" of daylilies that tend to look like that patch of messy Johnson Grass up the road in a garden. Since they will grow in poor conditions with no care, people do plant them but there are so many better alternatives. On the other hand, appropriate tussock type grasses look good during all seasons, block weed growth, add great texture, wonderful seed heads and require almost no maintenance.
I imagine the area one lives in determines if a plant looks suitable or not and tastes probably differ in various parts of the country.
One problem with a garden full of plants like garden phlox, rudbeckia, day lilies etc and many other "die to the ground" perennials filling a bed is that there is no interest in winter or early spring. Many have a tendency to flop, therefore requiring staking and future dividing along with the job of deadheading and require too much irrigations. Maybe this is just a factor in more southern parts of the country where we tend to be in the garden for most of the year and lack snow on the ground. There are many varieties of plants to choose from that fit the bill around here for these issues.
Less work would result with well spaced drought hardy shrublike perennials and subshrubs that get woody and have a presence with maturity. I find they are better choices for year round interest & low maintenance, which usually means maintaining overall neatness. These types are attractive both in or out of bloom. It prevents that often overwhelming & overgrown chaotic appearance that often occurs in mid to late summer when choosing various plants based strictly on "showy flowers" especially when the plants are out of their early peak blooming period after which they tend to shut down & burn up in summer and need too much irrigation just to stay alive.
A garden full of blackened to the ground foliage & stems and a boring blank slate in winter is something I find downright depressing. Again this is probably a regional thing. The grasses are quite pretty in winter here.
Thx gardenweed! Had no idea I could grow from seed. I may have saved some. I have many packets I never got around to using when I was gonna give winter sowing a try. Will have to check.
I also loved their freeform look and the bees sure loved them, too. Am so sad I lost that pink one since it looked so pretty falling over the edge of my raised bed.
Thx gardenweed! Had no idea I could grow from seed. I may have saved some. I have many packets I never got around to using when I was gonna give winter sowing a try. Will have to check.
I also loved their freeform look and the bees sure loved them, too. Am so sad I lost that pink one since it looked so pretty falling over the edge of my raised bed.
Well, up til this past year the hydrangea was happy and growing well. It's in decent soil that's a bit acidic. I don't think the soil is the issue.
My concern is that now it has spread and I want to contain it. I can't replace all of the soil on my property. I considered removing the hydrangea, but that's not going to help all of the other plants that have been infected and I'd like to try to save it since it has some sentimental value. To linaria, I've come to conclusion 2.
I need to know if the horticultural oil is going to be effective like I was told at the nursery.
First, it is extremely unusual for the same disease problems to affect a whole range of different plants - they are typically very plant-specific (the exception being powdery mildew). Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the same problem is affecting all your plants and so the same blanket treatment will not help.
It is of primary importance to get an accurate diagnosis of the specific problem for each plant in question and then utilize the appropriate remedy. Hopefully someone on staff at a better garden center can help or check out a Master Gardener clinic or your local extension service.
Often, the incidence of a lot of plant problems is more culturally related than an actual disease issue - fix the growing condition and the problem disappears. Fungal issues like leaf spot are often related to weather, overwatering, watering at the wrong time of day (leaving water on foliage overnight), poor drainage, lack of air circulation or even proper garden clean-up and sanitation. And mulching in winter can help a lot - a good layer of mulch smothers fungal spores that can overwinter on the soil surface and prevent them from splashing up with rains and reinfecting.
Your hydrangea issue is most likely cercospora leaf spot, a very common problem with a number of hydrangea types. If you read the attached info sheet, you'll notice that the condition is primarily due to cultural issues. Correct those and you will correct the problem.
Here is a link that might be useful: Cercospora leaf spot.
Thanks for your response, grandmamaloy. I'm happy to hear there is some hope for these plants. I really like them, and I want to see them fill in during their second season.
Hopefully, by May, I can post a picture of the recovered euphorbias thriving in the garden (fingers crossed).
Thanks again.
Personally, I would be a bit skeptical about their survival.....these are both evergreen species/hybrids and should hold foliage throughout the winter in areas where they are hardy. In my climate, both are beginning to set flower buds at this time of year.
Given the severity of the winter across much of the eastern half of the country, I'm not at all surprised that some of these kinds of plants - evergreen, xeric, requiring very sharp drainage - have not overwintered well in some areas. Excessively cold temperatures, loads of snow and consistently wet soils are just not at all to their liking.
wantanamara, how lucky you are to live close to the LBJ Research Center, must be the Mother Lode for finding great native plants. I'd empty the bank account if I lived that close. I'm further north, slimmer pickings. My soil is a bit friendlier but its hot and dry here too.
I'm growing:
P. pseudospectabilis
P. palmeri, gets huge & armed with sharp edges on blue leaves
P. eatonii, pretty sure, seed came in desert mix from Az, might be another red
P. ambiguus
I sowed P. barbatus, cyananthus & more ambiguus, I'm still waiting to see results.
The only one that hasn't done well was P. pinifolius. The inferno summers of 2011 & 2012 did it in both years.
You mentioned drainage. Agree. Its a classic xeric plant, to my mind the SW native types are the prettiest. All are low maintenance and good re-seeders.
I'm wanting to order P. virgatus, it doesn't need cold strat. so I may order some seed on a short list from PoSW.
campanula, I believe the P. ambiguus would work well there if you have a sandy spot. Its a very long blooming 2ft bush rounded type native to the US central plains. Smells great, surprisingly bright flowers.
Yes,Texas Ranger, I am looking to pick up a couple of Penstemon laxiflorus. Mine died in the big drought and had not had a chance to make a lot of seed. Nor has it been rainy enough for the seed to sprout Lately.
This post was edited by wantonamara on Sat, Mar 15, 14 at 23:13
A previous post says bulb does not tolerate temps lower than 28F and if they need to be planted in Fall, and growing in January, I probably can't grow it in USDA zone 7, in Maryland? Could over-wintering in a pot in an unheated garage, and then bringing the pot out in March work? Today our temperature is 17 degree F. Is this cold enough to kill potted tubers?
Yes, you can do that and the anemones will flower later but will possibly not come back so reliably the following year. I keep a few of mine outside in pots all winter but in truth, I doubt they would survive extended freeziness in anything but the most free draining and friable of soils.
F. ulmaria has been an aggressive spreader/reseeder in my garden since the evil day I planted it years ago. I've dug out most of the plants, but have to battle the remainder in damp sections of the garden every year.
Attractive only for a short period, plagued by Japanese beetles, invasive...what's not to like?
Babs, that outfit sounds very exotic. [g] But knowing how those black fly bites hurt, I would do the same thing. I didn't realize you had to deal with them the whole month of May. May is such a lovely month, it's too bad. Do you have a screened space to eat outdoors? And does that outfit keep you bug free?
We have a van and normally don't have a problem fitting in all the garden plants and supplies we need, but like you and Thyme2, when I've been in our two seater, I've stopped at the nursery for 'just a couple of six packs' and then 'had to have' that standard Hibiscus that was just the color I was looking for. What else is a convertible for, any way? [g]
Gry, that was the craziest thing! Who would have expected rats to pop out of a birdhouse, but SIX of them, leaping out at you? I can't help thinking of phone booth contests during spring break. ;-)
I have to say that my garden seems pretty boring in comparison to all of yours but I'll take boring, thank you. lol
Thanks SunnyBorders and gardenweed. Those sure are beautiful. I have just winter sown hisirtus. I have grown husker red and pinifolius also. I really want to try some of those bright colors. I'm not too worried about the plants since I just buy seeds and winter sow them. If they die, it's not a huge loss. I think maybe I'll post those questions in the Western New York category. It's good to get experience from people in the area like you.
Here is my Gloxinoides. I think it's called Firebird. It gets about 30 inches tall.