13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

I bought 4 Rudbeckia Priarie Sun in the spring and they were doing great. Now we have had rain about every day for at least two weeks and when the sun comes out the humidity is oppressive. Three wilted all of a sudden and one is still OK. They are planted in the same area. My situation does not reflect the solutions I have read that I should keep watering or that they are in shock from transplanting since it has been almost 3 months since they were planted. Does someone have another guess?

Ninam,
Your plants are all nicely established, but they may be suffering from too much water. Rain constantly will keep the roots from being able to breathe, because the water fills all the gaps in the soil that should contain air and oxygen. If the water is there too long, the roots begin to rot and can't do their job of maintaining the rest of the plant. Rudbeckia are prairie plants that function best in soil that is dry much more often than wet.

Martha

Thanks Cyn! Do you have enough paths - in the right places - to keep those galloping gardeners out of the important stuff? Our dogs - visitoring ones as well as ours - have newer caused problems in the garden because they really do prefer the 'path of least resistance' when racing around the garden :-)

I was just out WALATing and took a bunch of pictures. Once I get them organized I may post a bunch, focussing on the plants that have been discussed in recent threads. I'm generally happy with the backyard garden (except for the weeding that needs doing!) but am increasingly unhappy with the front garden. It is badly in need of an overhaul! It has become a spring garden and later summer garden but is in a lull now - there is stuff going on but not really eye-catching from a distance. Parts of it will likely become a shade garden as the trees and shrubs mature further. Some of the large, tall perennials need to be yanked in favor of lower, more colorful things - I foresee a lot of heucheras moving in! I've been planting a few different ones in the past year or so to see how they like it out there. So far, so good.... So next spring is looking to be a tear-out-and-re-do event! I will let this year play out as-is while making an assessment of what gets evicted and what will replace them....

Christine, most of the plants on your list were unfamiliar to me, so I just spent a while looking them up. Defintely some great plants on your list.

If you're interested, Plant Delights just put Deinanthe caerulea 'Blue Wonder' on sale. And Fraser's Thimble Farms sells Double Hepatica for only $75 a plant., lol. (Actually that nursery has a lot of the items on your list.)

Thanks for introducing me to a great group of plants.

And Woody, I wish I could see your garden in person. Truly gorgeous.

'karin', I am a sucker for such cat "nick nacks" for the garden. It has got to the point, having bought too many that I now quickly put them in the garden thinking my partner won't notice them until it is too late ;).

Oh that's funny. I can definitely relate. Perhaps you need to just camouflage your cat art, like this piece, which, you know, you'd need a sharp eye to notice. :)

wieslaw59, what happened to 'let's just drop it'?

If you still need to defend your position about whether trollius need moisture or not, please do so without any further personal comments.

For those of you who are growing it, do you grow it in full sun, part sun or shade? I have spots in all three of those light sitiations. The shade is pretty shady - a Japanese red maple is nearby.

here they get 8-10 feet tall and as wide-yes once established they are gold!

I have the cultivar 'Alice' (won as a door prize 7-8 years ago) which is supposed to be a vigorous selection by Michael Dirr. It blooms on old wood, so didn't bloom for probably the first five years I had it, due to winterkill. If it wasn't for the attractive red leaves in the fall, I would have ripped it out. I guess it finally got acclimatized to its new planting location and has bloomed each year since then. It must be just borderline hardy for me, and the dry summers don't help either.

I planted two just a few weeks ago. I don't mind the sprawl, but mine is turning much more purple than it was initially. Anyone else finding this to be true?

By this Sunday, July 7 we will have had temps in the mid to upper nineties for nearly a week. That is "Mercury Risen" for the greater Boston area.
Which is what I thought the post was about the first three times I looked at the subject line.
First Impressions? it is too damned hot.

Thanks rouge21, I remember that the Shastas I had were started from seed and I think I had a 'Becky' but maybe they don't come true to seed.

Wow. I planted a bargain banÃÂ na cream last spring. It came back and has been in full bloom for about 3 weeks now. I guess I'm the odd man out because I have loved the show.

IME it will kill any woody I have tried it on. It may not kill it the first time (buckthorn), but resprouts will be weaker and have stunted leaves, and if I reapply, I haven't had anything sprout a third time.

Monsanto sells the "Roundup" brand. However, the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, has been off the patent since 2000. You can buy generic glyphosate products such as "Kleenup", which is 41% glyphosate and cost about 1/4 the price of Roundup. In addition to being much cheaper, I prefer not to support a corporation like Monsanto if possible.

For woody invasives, I use brush/stump/poison ivy killer like Brush-B-gone or BK32 concentrate, which contains tryclopyr and 2-4-D. I think it works a bit better than glyphosate for the pernicious and deep-rooted invasives like Buckthorn or Rosa multiflora.

An organic alternative would be to weed out or cut down the growth on the stems repeatedly, until the roots eventually "give up the ghost". My sister did this with a patch of Japanese knotweed, although it took a few years.

This post was edited by terrene on Fri, Jul 5, 13 at 20:20

If you are in an area with red lily beetles, which I know are unfortunately common in New England, be aware that they like Fritillaria, so you will need to hand pick the beetles, grubs, and eggs (or else use some really nasty pesticides.)

yep, and not only do the lily beetles attack frits, the frits simply will not return reliably after losing ANY foliage to lily beetle. A long ago memory in my garden (although I grow many lilies which can and do sustain a certain amount of lily beetle damage).

You may have asters yellow. No, it's not only restricted to this one variety. It is a problem of epidemic proportions here in Europe.

And it has been epidemic in my NAmerican garden also the past couple of seasons. This coupled with "sunflower moth larvae" in the cones will likely have me removing all echinacea from my property this season as I see these issues reappearing. The complete unreliability of coneflowers seems a bit similar to the wide spread health issues of impatiens walleriana with its downy mildew epidemic.

mmmm, afraid echinaceas (apart from basic seed sown pinks), along with coreopsis, (all of 'em), smaller delphiniums (tatsiense, belladonna et al) and sidalceas have not been a feature of my gardens for the last few years - too temperamental, too sporadic to jostle for scarce resources in the hurly-burly of my garden beds.
On the other hand, am getting rather fed up with the rampaging rudbeckias and asters............

Sorry to hear about your critter problems. A small terrier type dog or a cat who is a good mouser can be very helpful for controlling the population of small rodents and rabbits. In addition to the cat, I use primarily repellents or barriers to keep critters away.

For year I've had problems with critters decimating the Sunflowers. From chipmunks, woodchucks, squirrels, and even a dang Robin that wanted to pull up EVERY seedling, my Sunflowers have been under assault for years.

Now I use double barriers, hardware cloth around each sunflower and 2x4 inch wire fencing or yard wire, encircling the whole group of Sunflowers, and finally success! This seems to have kept all the critters out. These are the best Sunflowers I've had in years - Helianthus annuus Mammoth Russian in back, Lemon Queen in front. :)

This post was edited by terrene on Fri, Jul 5, 13 at 15:30

stir_fryi - the rubber snakes are a clever idea.

You don't identify the heat zone in which your garden is located so that might limit or expand your perennial options. I've listed below hardy perennials growing in my beds that are untouched by deer but wouldn't want to get your hopes up of growing them if they aren't hardy in your zone.

Agastache rupestris/sunset hyssop and Caryopteris/blue mist shrub are both fragrant, low-maintenance and of no interest to the bunnies or deer in my garden, along with the following:
Penstemon/beardtongue
Lychnis coronaria/rose campion
Buddleia davidii/Butterfly bush
Stachys/lamb's ear
Baptisia/false indigo
Chelone/turtlehead
Brunnera/Siberian bugloss
Hellebore/Lenten rose
Stokesia laevis/Stoke's aster
Trollius ledebourii/Chinese globeflower
Euphorbia polychroma/cushion spurge
Heuchera/coral bells
Persicaria virginiana/fleeceflower
Phlox divaricata/woodland phlox
Phlox paniculata/tall garden phlox
Nipponanthemum nipponicum/Montauk daisy
Nepeta faasiini/Walkers Low catmint
Ratibida columnifera/Mexican hat

Most, but not all (phlox, lamb's ear, catmint, spurge, brunnera & hellebore) were grown from seed via winter sowing. Those purchased were picked up from reputable mail order nurseries on half-off sales over the course of several years.

Best of luck with your garden.