13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

Walker's low is a blooming machine! I find mine has seeded, though, so it can't be sterile. Not enough to be obnoxious: just enough to make me happy. I now have several. I try to put a low cage around it (made from the top portion of an old tomato cage) before it starts blooming to prevent the flop.

Give it lots of space, though.

Walkers Low does not like a lot of water. I have it down at the end of my driveway bed, usually a good spot for it, slightly raised bed, fairly dry. However, when we get a rainy season, there's running water and splashing water and it will nip it back or kill it back. I just trimmed about a third of the plant back the other day.

It does spread some, but it hasn't been horrible.

well yes, Kevin....but with some plants, within the clusters of flowers, some are actually going into seed while others are still blooming - totally impossible to tease out the minuscule green blown flowers while others, tight up against them, are still doing their floriferous thing....and worse, polemoniums, like primula, pulsatilla, hellebores and some geraniums, set seeds which will germinate immediately even though soft and green. Once dry, they will go into dormancy but even dead-heading regularly will fail to catch every wayward seed from sprouting.

I do have to say that yours look particularly colourful, attractive and garden-worthy. Mine look much rattier.

Kevin, I'm actually the world champion in birth control by deadheading. (It's I who preach it for others). But in the case of Polemonium and Tradescantia you would have to spy on what individual flowers are doing, which is far beyond what I want to spend my time on.

Here it is listed as Potentilla thurberi Monarch's Velvet. I had the straight species P. thurberi. It was actually the best standing-up potentilla of them all. The problem with this plant was that the flowers are just too small and too few at a time to be effective for that dark colour.(one of those plant you have to look for to notice)

Thanks so much! Now I know how to site it. If it sprawls or scrambles that explains the width stated by the Missouri Botanic Garden. Of course the picture on the tag shows it covered with flowers, as did most of the shots I found online. I love red, so plants that are red (or wine, or similar) tend to land on my cart even if I know nothing about them.

It was only a quart, and not expensive. IâÂÂm glad I didnâÂÂt pay more. Cinquefoil is probably just the common name: both were on the tag.

Lilyfleur, burying hardware cloth all around a garden bed sounds like a lot of work, but it would probably work. You could try putting a rock or brick border around the bed. Voles like to travel through loose soil close to the surface and they don't like rocks or gravelly soil. They will turn in another direction if they encounter rocks.

Not sure if it is foolproof, but so far the voles have never bothered any plants that are in my foundation beds, which are bordered by either a stone pathway or bricks.

Hey rouge, I wonder why your H. Lemon Queen is so well-behaved? My patch is now about 8 feet long and 4-5 feet thick. It was about that big when the voles ate most of it. It spreads into the daylilies and I have to pull a lot of shoots out each year.

I am trying to look on the bright side terrene in that your very large stand must look spectacular in the fall!

I may have underestimated the width of mine....probably closer to 3.5 feet. But it is all together. I have never seen any stray seedlings away from the main clump.

This post was edited by rouge21 on Tue, Jun 18, 13 at 12:27

The white one for me wasn't too aggressive compared to any other perennial. The standard purple one (don't know the variety) is aggressive and have to keep an eye on it. It's loosing the battle with a clumping bamboo though so it can't go too far. Any remnant of the runners that you leave in the ground will start up new plants but the are easy enough to pull.

The white flowered Physostegia virginiana/obedient plant Is probably P. "Miss Manners". I had it for several years in a bed and it did not spread at all. It finally died out after two or 3 years of gradual decline. I liked the plant, but it never had the vigor of it's pink invasive relatives.

I have a similar problem with bindweed growing among my perennails and through some of my low growing evergreens. This is the solution I came up with to apply Roundup - Tear off a piece of aluminum foil, line it with paper towling, curl the foil around the vine part way,stuff as much of the vine as you can into the packet (I liken it to putting a hotdog in a bun), spray the weedkiller inside the little packet, close it up tightly. In day or so you can remove you little foil packet, making sure the foliage has absorbed the spray and is completely dry.

My experience with this plant is that it is more prostrate than trainable. It isn't really noticeable until your bike tire goes flat or you step on it. So it sneaked up on you. It is said to be an annual at your temps, so that means it should be easier than bindweed for you. One thing I would do is make sure that it is exposed all winter so that it really is killed. So really focus on and get out all those plants that are going to be protected by your wanted plantings. I would get a good hoe and use it all spring, learning what the baby plants look like so I can get them all out early before they seed. A good hoe and diligence early on is the safest and cheapest remedy.
I have never had someone using glyphosate near me kill my organic garden, but I have had someone take it out using Trimec which contains 2,4d. It is notorious for drift, so be sure if you use an herbicide you follow directions and read the label and be thoughtful. It is really sad and maybe even frightening to see your peonies turn brown in one day, your tomatoes and squashes all distorted. And Ken, I think plants can be pests. I think herbicides can be pesticides, but not all pesticides are herbicides. You just have to get the pesticide for the job you are trying to do. Read the label even if it is tortuous.

Smart thinking Kevin but I never cut my peony blooms to bring indoors. I want to enjoy my garden, aesthetically, olfactorily (sp?) and visually, actually IN my garden and don't care to bring it inside the house. Can't cite a specific reason but flowers indoors have never held any appeal for me [just a personal choice here, no editorializing intended]. I am impressed with those sturdier support rings and may issue a challenge to my I-love-to solve-garden-problems son to construct something similar for my own use.

Peonies are and always will be valued in my perennial beds no matter how they behave. What's not to love? Gorgeous foliage that's unaffected by pests from early on right through frost, gorgeous, fragrant blooms & little to no maintenance. At most I dump woodstove ashes on them in January each year.

I am addicted to peonies. I don't think I could ever have enough.. these ones I bought from a table outside someone's house around the corner so I've no idea what they are.

It won't rebloom ime but a good clipping keeps it neater. It's a bit of a thug.

Agreed with all of the above. You can deadhead it by grabbing the spent stems and just pulling it out. This also lets you keep the plant in bounds a bit. If you've got tons of it, you can weed whack the old flowers. Whatever you do, don't feel compelled to baby it. It goes through a bit of an ugly phase post-bloom, but it bounces back fast to be a pleasing mat of soft foliage for the rest of the year. It's one of the few seedy plants that I'll still allow here.

Rabbit bites are very sharp, as if done by a pruner. Deer bites tend to be quite ragged.

Based on what I hear here I bet it was eaten by rabbits!!!!!! We have regular rabbit visitors... and I see them around the yard and they are not afraid to come right up to the house at all. I wasn't sure how far off the ground rabbits can reach/eat because they seem pretty tiny... so that's why I thought it was deer. I thought it was weird because deer never come this close to the house and I never see them on this side of the house, etc. etc.

I also have another new tickseed zagreb that is eaten to the nub every time it tries to leaf out.... I think that's pretty much done for the year.

But great to know at least. We will look into liquid fence, and give it a little time to see how it bounces back.

Thanks everyone!!

Not long lived is correct. I planted one for the first time last fall. About five months later I forgot and pulled it up as a healthy-growing weed. Two days later I realized what I had done. Another gardening oops for the journal; probably why I don't keep a journal. ;)

This is not a show stopper plant, but it is nice. Tolerant of clay, xeric, useful in a xeriscape where there aren't so many red plants. Supposed to be long blooming if deadheaded. I don't think I would buy one in bloom, but I did buy a rosette last year, and it is blooming now. If it reseeds, that is fine with me. Seems to me no site is clear on the nomenclature, though. All list it as amoena.

I posted this photo on another perennial thread, but it shows the location of 'Wild Swan' in my garden.

Thanks for posting 'GF'. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be...is it blooming in this picture? If so could you post a close-up? If not could you keep us up to date when it does begin to flower?

I *just* planted two very small WSwan this past week and I am not sure how much shade it can take and be successful.

As well I am wondering how large this particular Anemone will get and if it will make it through a zone 5 winter.

This post was edited by rouge21 on Sun, Jun 16, 13 at 5:47

Yes, it was in bloom, even though it is very difficult to make out in that photo. The flower stems were wilting regularly while the plant adapts to being in the ground. I am on the road for over a week, so no other photos are available right now.

Tricky on alkaline soil...but if lupine does well for you, aciphyllas should. Interesting genus.

Thanks Ninamarie. Morinas do ok this far south during cool-to-normal summers, but they seem to never really build up enough strength to get through the hot summers. (I'm in Maryland) Since the last three summers have been very hot (fingers crossed this one will turn out differently...looks promising so far) the plant I had for years finally gave up the ghost last summer. It also doesn't help that rabbits will ignore it for a couple years then randomly mow the whole plant down one night. That happened the year before last, so, between that and a 3rd hot summer, it was just too much for it.

What about a variegated leaf polemonium like Stairway to Heaven?

phlox divaricata, phlox stolonifera, chrysogonum virginianum, tricyrtis, pulmonaria, brunnera, astilbe, lady fern, viola walteri 'Silver Gem', japanese forest grass, anemone (depending on how much sun you get).