13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

I agree with Flora and her low light diagnosis, but it's not anything I'd worry about. Your plants were likely small young plants and I think even with a less than full sun position they will come up much stronger next year. Give it till then and I think your problem will be gone.
Do you know how to prune them? Cut them back in the spring to about 6 inches and they will sprout up to at least five feet in the second year.

All of the excess rain this year, lots of floppy, weak plants likely anywhere where this has been the case. Also, nearly constantly beating rain can literally beat plants down. Whenever it's raining, the sun is also not shining, a double whammy when stuff isn't thirsty and has hardly see the sun for weeks. Keep deadheading to remove excess weight. The good thing is that the butterflies don't care what it looks like.

Totally agree with spring trimming. When you see strong new growth next year, trim aggressively for shape and sturdiness, removing any weak, spindly branches completely, any not aimed upright or crossing each other, and radically shortening the length/height overall. As they continue to grow, trim when/where necessary to keep the shape that pleases your eye. Looking from several sides first, and from above when possible can help you determine the extraneous parts that should be removed. BB's left alone for a while will get too wild, they need a lot of futzing and trimming all summer to keep it looking great, and trimming causes more vigorous new growth, more blooms to form. (But stop trimming in the fall to stop sending it cues to keep growing, except to deadhead.)

aachenelf, dig carefully. I broke a lot of bulbs when I moved because where they come up many times is not where the bulb is buried.

one other thought on fall planting ...

i always.. thought of such.. as one of the last things to do in the soil before winter...

as such ... i know where all the spots are to plant things...

the few times i did it in summer... i usually .. in fall.. wait for it.. lol

disturbed them.. trying to plant more bulbs on top of them.. BECAUSE I FORGOT I DID IT IN THE OFF SEASON.. LOL...

aach ... milkweed is near done with seed maturation... did you want me to send some to you... use my members page.. and give me a direct email.. so we can hash it out...

and .. since the plant will be planting them itself.. soon.... i dont know why you couldnt do the same... but i will send you enough to sow some now.. some winter sowing.. and spring planting....

ken

There are lots of plants that aren't "reliably" hardy in cold regions. It's a fun surprise for me when they sprout new green from the base of the plants. It sounds as if yours didn't survive the winter and return, but reseeded, instead. I know nothing about how stable seedlings from commercial annual seeds are supposed to be, but hybridized plants will usually tend to revert back to whatever the original appearance of the parents were. I agree that the flower you showed us is gorgeous. I have annual rudbeckias growing, but I don't have any blooms yet. You're making me anxious to see what I get.

Martha

My rudbeckias cross pollinate freely and there are all sorts of different flower patterns happening in my garden.

I may have Max Frei; I know I have some oxy.......somethings with a woman's name (Mrs. something something)....A.T Johnson...... Max got 3 feet tall and was amputated at the ankles. Don't remember if he reblooms

3 feet is way to tall for "Max"! My established MFs get about a foot or so in height and maybe a bit more in breadth. I find they do bloom sporadically in early fall.

I was correct, I don't remember correctly! Regardless of the name, I know a floppy two foot geranium when I see it, and I know what to do to with it.
Marie
I don't remember if I tried Patricia. If I did it isn't here anymore.

Woorf - As an impartial observer and a Heliopsis aficionado I would add my vote to the Helenium 'Mardi Gras'. Dif'rent strokes.

Wow, thanks everyone for the input. Nhbabs it sounds like your siting is the same as my friend's, so this could work there. And it sounds like Mardi Gras is the helenium of choice if I go that way.

I will present her with the option of Mardi Gras or the heliopsis - I'm more partial to Summer Nights but she might like the Prairie Sunset because of the orange center.

Thanks again for all your help!
:)
Dee

I have a hard time getting rid of any plants. I have ambitious plans this fall to redo and expand my main sunny garden bed, so I have been thinking about potential SP candidates though.

Red Hot Poker lily. Started from seed. Very short bloom period and the rest of the year has long, floppy, unattractive leaves. I might just move to a less visible spot though. Kind of my solution for every under performing plant.

Sweet Intoxication Roses (two!). Boy , these things are just pitiful. But even their piddly, disease ridden, japanese beetle infested flowers smell great. I am going to give them one more year.

Considering NOT growing annual snapdragon, cleome or nasturtiums anymore. I love these flowers, but they all have problems here. Snapdragons are apparently favored by four lined plant bug which does horrendous foliar damage in the spring. Cleomes and flea beetles, ugh! And my nasturtiums...I think my soil is just too high in clay for them.

I have a tradescantia with bright pink flowers that gets red spider mites every year. Tradscantia Sweet kate doesn't have this same problem. I already SP one clump of the pink flowering one and the second clump will probably go soon too.

A clump of orange/marooon asiatic lilies. These are prolific multipliers, but they fade quickly and aren't all that attractive.

My biggest SP candidate is a crab apple tree planted by the previous owners far too close to the foundation. Beautiful spring display...but has to be cut back every year to avoid scraping our roof plus this year is has started to grow in front of our living room window. With all the cutting back needed on it, a painful to look at contorted silhouette has developed. Also the japanese beeltes love it. The front yard needs a big redo IMO anyways as it relies heavily on spirea which are currently covered in crispy brown flower heads. But, I probably won't actually tackle this project until spring or next fall.

Candidates for removal this fall when the weather is cooler:
spirea 'Golden Elf'. Looked great for the first two seasons and now experiences significant die back every winter and looks pitiful all summer. I am also considering removing some daylilies with short scapes that bloom in the foliage. Not the best look.

Thanks for the reply! I went and bought two more to jazz up the gardene along the driveway! We'll see how it goes in zone 5!

Len

I got this plant last year loved it but this year it is not what it should be. it is a monster and does not smell like mint. This is the second plant I got at Lowes that did this to me.

I find cutting the phlox and other perennials down to ground level, by late fall, just about eliminates the appearance of powdery mildew in the following year.

'Sunny', I have always left perennial plants as is until the spring...with the understanding that the above ground dead veg. provides winter protection...like a mulch. But at the least I will do as you do for the phlox as an experiment.

Rouge, know you said you had two 'Peppermint Twist'.

See they're planted close together.
Almost ideal from a controlled experimental point of view, because they likely get the same sun, water, it's the same year, etc..

So you could cut one down and leave the other and see the effect next year (only one variable varied).

Just kidding!
Don't think the pair, one tall and one short, would look so nice next year.

All of my garden phlox have done just that since we moved to blazing hot Kansas in 2007. No amount of water or babying helped. I grew real beauties in Chicago, but not here, where I tried for five years. No more, and I reallymiss growing them.

All of my garden phlox have done just that since we moved to blazing hot Kansas in 2007. No amount of water or babying helped. I grew real beauties in Chicago, but not here, where I tried for five years. No more, and I reallymiss growing them.

Flowergirl70ks,
Face it, some of us are just too fragile to survive the kind of heat you live with. I'd be digging me a deep cave if I lived where you do.

LizEMA,
It does sound as if the heat got the better of your Delphinium. Hopefully temporarily. We'll all send positive vibes in your direction and hope it returns with cooler weather.

Martha

Everybody,
Thank you ALL SO much for responding. :-) I so very much appreciate all of the insight that you've all given. My delph had already survived a previous heatwave (though less intense) several weeks ago completely unscathed so I was fairly baffled, but, duh! Of course that kind of intense heat is going to make an impact. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something *I* was doing or NOT doing.

I have learned very quickly that yes, Ken, things are ALWAYS changing in my yard. (I lost almost all of my coreopsis this year to HORRIFIC powdery mildew. :( And, no, EMA is not my location; I'm in southern NY.) As a beginner, it's nice to be reminded that sometimes Mother Nature does not always comply with our own plans and it's not always from lack of care or love that causes our beautiful plant babies to not do well or, worse, DIE.

I'm sure that you can all relate to that feeling of being completely lost and not knowing ANYTHING when just getting started. It's overwhelming and imbues such a sense of failure; sometimes it feels like I'll never know what I'm doing. It's invaluable being privy to the knowledge of gardening veterans, and I am truly grateful to all that responded. You guys are AWESOME! Thanks again, all!

Idabean, thanks for the book suggestion. I just ordered it from Barnes and noble!
I'm a newbie gardener and there's only so much advice I can find via google ;-)

I second the suggestion of the "Well Tended Perenial Garden". The first garden I ever planted I did following her exact instructions on amending the soil. Everything grew like gangbusters.

Thanks, Linda, for that info. That might explain why some of us have more seedlings than others.

I went out to water today (grrr, still mad that the rain they talked about for a week never materialized!) and the coneflowers were just covered in butterflies. So, I have to say, they're not bothering me quite as much anymore, lol. How can they, when the butterlflies are enjoying them so much?

Dee

Lovely picture, Dee. I'm with you on both counts. I love it when the hummers, bees, and butterflies enjoy my plants. Makes all the work maintaining them worthwhile!

And we too are still waiting for the rain that was promised, along with the cooler weather that was supposed to be here today. No rain and a 70 dewpoint - yuck. Looks like we'll be dragging the hose tomorrow. It's been almost two weeks since we've had any appreciable rain here. And before that, it rained almost every day for two weeks. Nothing like feast or famine.

Linda