13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
You're an awfully quiet bunch! Nice to hear a little of the other side to you posters.... Once or twice I would post to an idyll thread, but mostly just enjoyed the photos when things were quiet in the winter.
So don't worry, I won't talk anyone's ear off! I'm mid 40's, male (sorry to crash the party.... Or am I not the only guy?) wife, two kids, girl into kindergarten this fall, boy into second.... Located between Scranton and Wilkes barre PA. That's about two hours north of Philadelphia in case you're not up on your smaller Pennsylvania cities.
I've gardened all my life, even in college I had a houseplant or two suffering along in my dorm room. This house that I'm in now has been my first permanent property since leaving mom and dad, and I'm finally able to try lots of the stuff I always wanted to!
So greetings to all, hello marquest my fellow Pennsylvanian, and a2zmom how are those color themed borders going? Im trying to make my plant collection look a little more "designed" but so far all I have to show for it is a red border that's just a mess of weeds and almost every color other than red! Lol
Be good folks!
Frank
I don't trust Zone 5s anywhere. Last year a hosta survived in a half whiskey barrel, but that doesn't mean it will survive this year. If I thought I might have some Z6 in my yard, as some maps indicate, I might feel better about it, but 5 is fickle and might as well be Zone 4 for all I care. Zone 5 just sucks.
Pat
I own a greenhouse and Garden centre which is a zone 3a in a good year with snow cover and a zone 2b when we have no snow. All our perennials here are grown and propagated in raised bed. All perennials hardy to zone 3/4 will survive here in raised beds. The zone fours are those that must be planted against a building to survive our hardest winters and so they are planted the same way, either closest to a structure or in the center of the bed. Any plant that is hardy to your zone will survive in a raised bed..IF it is watered sufficiently before freeze up and watered again if it thaws.
kato
When I planted my Buddleia 'Blue Heaven' this past spring, it was a small plant in a 3 1/2 inch pot and I was absolutely blown away by how fast it grew. I'm so used to shrubs not doing much the first season or two, so to have a very respectable blooming sized Buddleia the first season from such a small pot size sold me on the idea of ordering more small plants this spring.
Sugar sprinkles: Be warned! It's kind of an addictive process. Once you discover how easy it is to do, it's hard to stop with a few basic colors.
Kevin
One year, maybe two or three years ago, I noticed about 20 self-sowed Buddleia growing in my beds. I have never noticed any before and none since. I think there may have been heavy late-summer rain that year.
I notice some growing wild, not so many to seem problematic.
My garden contains 4 mature Buddleia. My soil is rich loam and mildly acid.
Some combination of conditions allows for self sowing. I just can't figure out which ones!
eric_oh - thanks for sharing. I went walkabout my garden beds a couple of days ago and noted I've got Hellebore/Lenten rose buds on at least one of my plants so am excitedly looking forward to them blooming when February/March rolls around. Doesn't appear to be the spectacular show they put on this year but it might be a bit early to give up on them.
Sorry JJ, don't have a close-up.
I know photos and light can both appear to "lie" about colour, but that picture's probably a fair representation.
To me definitely blue.
There is that business of "tetrachromacy" in some human females: namely, they appear to have a fourth colour receptive pigment in the retina of the eye.
My wife and I frequently disagree about purple and blue, with her describing a flower as purple and me as blue.
I don't think, however, we'd disagree on gentian blue.
I might be wrong, but I tend to see the species, Gentiana dahurica (see below) more truly (for me) blue ("Oxford blue", where I was brought up) than the cultivar, G. dahurica 'Nikita'.
I noticed Robins still here the other day after reading this thread. We had a lot of berries this year on the Grey Dogwood shrub and a couple of hollies in the corner near it. I saw three robins eating the berries on both the other day. I'm surprised that they didn't strip the shrub, but they left some and the squirrels were making a daily trek to the shrub and eating the berries too. It has been funny to watch because a lot of the branches are thin and light and the berries are on the tips of them, so the squirrels have to do all kinds of aerial feats to get at them. lol
Gladys is amazing and Midnight Train to Georgia is one of my all time favorites. Now that song will be linked to birds flying south in the fall. Cute. (g)
i never saw the pips sans Gladys ... hilarious ...
anyone actually know.. how far south robins go .... do they actually go as far as GA ... on migration i mean ...
from MI .... they probably only need to get south of OH .... to be in z7 .... or maybe they like red clay ...
ken
That is amazing, Rouge21! I guess the stake is what is holding it up with all that ice on it. It's very pretty. I'm imagining a whole bed of those on either side of a walkway covered with ice. It would look like a real fantasy landscape. :-) You also did a great job with that stake because you could hardly notice it when it was in bloom and if it weren't taller than the plant now, you might think it was part of the plant.
Jeanome, (although all of the plants pictured are frost-tender perennials,) when they sell flats of annuals, the New Guinea Impatiens usually appear at the same time, but sold individually in 4 inch pots or larger. Also often part of a mixed display already assembled in a larger pot. Probably around March 1 where you are.
Flora, TY! The more I learn about Begonias, the more I realize I don't know much. They are such a huge and complicated bunch.
Sunnyborders: your garden is making me drool.
And I love those trilliums. I think I will have to plant some of those.
My goal is to plant my orchard with poppies. I want to see lots of color between my trees. The orchard was started last summer and I planted daffodil bulbs (~200) to cheer it up until the trees flower. I want to seed the area with poppies for continuing color.
I also have a tree list (if trees count):
catalpa
european mountain ash
tulip poplar
magnolia
mimosa
I doubt I will put all of the above in next spring, but it gives me something to think about.
I agree with the above...if you plant hubrichtii, plant it for the foliage and plant it somewhere where it gets pretty much full sun and leaner conditions.
If you want an impressive bloom machine (for an amsonia) plant tabernaemontana or illustris (I prefer illustris). Mine in a moist prairie loam in Oklahoma looked like a shrub, attaining a height of 4 feet and easily that broad.
I wanted to touch on the local vs on-line purchasing issue again. I think it is very reasonable for those who have time and high quality nurseries nearby to save money and choose exactly the plants they want by shopping locally. However, the mail order companies do a wonderful job of packing and mailing excellent quality products. And they survive or fail depending on their customer service. If you receive anything you consider subpar they will replace it with no questions asked. There are organizations that track people's opinions of the various mail order companies, so you can check their reputation before you purchase anything. If we want to encourage other gardeners to plant a wider variety of plants, we have to display them in our gardens first. The extra cost of shipping is just the price we can choose to pay for something unusual or extra special. Also, once you have one of those special plants, you can save seed or take cuttings to propagate that plant and make the investment even more valuable. To each his own, but I've been very pleased by my on-line purchases. But, I don't have time to search the local nurseries. It's much easier for me to peruse the on-line catalogues at midnight and arrive home from work to find a carefully packed box on my door step. Good luck to everyone and enjoy your gardens.
Martha
Tags go into my 4-ring binders (punch holes in tags) along with a sheet of notebook paper where I note when and where the plant was bought and the cost. Included in the binders are perennials and unusual annuals started from seed.
Each year I page through the binders making notes about the growth and/or bloom of the plant that year. Very short notes:
"good bloom"; move, needs more sun; prune next spring after bloom; good growth; add contrasting companion next year; etc."
I also have detailed maps of each garden area which are updated in the winter from notes collected over the growing season and put in a file folder.
And notes on planters and pots for the deck and other areas with the plant selection and what I might do differently the next year or what I want to repeat.
I have removed some tags of plants that were removed either intentionally or due to natural decline but also keep some of those tags to remind me not to try that plant again as it didn't work.
I find that nowadays most of the plant tags that I add come from sale plants in the fall.
My beds are full and I am running out of space for new beds.
I'm thinking of ripping most of the plants out and starting again with something new but hesitating as which plants would I miss the least.
Maybe it would be easier to move!
hopeless, changes continually, cannot remember names and places (but I do get lots of surprises) - its all a bit of a mess. I think there may have been a 'plan' some time ago but now its just the willy-nilly method. As there are many veggies, I content myself with this as a reason it often looks insanely chaotic. When I run out of space, I poke plants in around the neighbourhood.
It's 27F tonight and we've had nearly four inches of snow, but the temp is 41 in the coldframe and my late season salad and root crops are still hanging in there.
The soil heating cables are doing the trick for now. We'll see how things go next week (when nighttime temps are expected to sink into single digits).
Of course, the indoor light garden is in fine shape, particularly the large-flowered Thai hybrid crown of thorns plants. These really should be more readily available in stores for the holidays - long-lasting blooms, easy culture and years of enjoyment compared to grow-it-and-throw-it poinsettias.
Of course, it's a lot easier for growers and nurseries to profit from plants that have to be replaced every year.
I know the stuff you are talking about. Here is what I have done...now is the best time to start over.
I did not cut mine down/trim them. If you do that now, you will be cutting off buds that are already forming.
Remove all leaves once frost has killed them. (Does frost kills your leaves?)
When the leaves start coming in the spring, spray with the stuff I linked to below. Do it every 7-10 days for the rest of the season. It is a bit tedious, but it helps a lot! It will not get rid of/prevent all of it, but it slows it down tremendously. Mine looked great until I slacked off...then the cercospora returned.
Try to not water overhead...it spreads the spores onto other leaves. Try to water closer to the ground.
My understanding is that this stuff is pretty much always present....it is just a matter of trying to control it. My understanding is that it also will not kill. It sure looks unsightly, though.
Far as other plants.....I am not sure if this exact same thing can spread or not. I have noticed similar things on random plants, but I cannot decide if it is the Salem thing or a similar fungus.
Hope this helps!
Here is a link that might be useful: Spectracide
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/hydra/msg082241474892.html
Ken,
I'm so sorry I dropped out for awhile. Here's the link to the other thread, if you still want it. I don't know the exact hydrangea I have, but it's some kind of ES. They're everywhere here. Thanks for your input.
Carolina, I think I'll try the spectracide. I don't want to use a lot of chemicals (mostly I just want to spend my money on plants, really :), but that seems very affordable compared to some things and every week or so doesn't bother me at all. Its depressing to think I'll never be completely rid of it though.
My only question is, then, I wonder why the Daconil didn't work? I sprayed it with that religiously. It still looked completely zapped. Part of me thinks I should rip it out, let that spot sit empty for a year, and plant a new one after that. But it was here before I came and I would hate to do that.
It has frosted here a few times, but there weren't any leaves left to pick off honestly :( I'll never stop being amazed at what's still green in the ground here in December, though! A few petunias and random annuals leftover from the summer that somehow survived the few freezes, some confused bulbs that have popped up already, foliage left over from summer bulbs that I wish would just die back already!, some volunteer seedlings... Virginia is nothing like Ohio where I'm originally from!