13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

Please don't leave out the charming and beautiful soft yellow flowers of Erodium golden storksbill

Thanks for this mention of this plant. I hadnt heard of it and its on-line description is intriguing. A perfect example of why I enjoy reading GW.

Quite a few of them will form nice, tidy clumps if scissors are applied regularly. :)

Martha, I do the same thing - have my pinks and purples on one side of the yard and my yellows, oranges, and reds on the other.

I've never been big on red (except for lobelia cardinalis which is an absolutely gorgeous red) and if you had told me five years ago that I'd have orange flowers in my garden I would have told you that you were crazy (well, except for the marigolds in the veggie garden.)

Then came the free nasturtium seeds, and some free cosmos Bright Lights seeds, and then I discovered tithonia, and then saw a Chicago Apache daylily and decided I needed to have a spot in the yard for these hotter colors.

The nice thing about yellow, of course, is that depending on the shade of yellow, it will go in either garden!

Dee

I have a whole list of yellow flowers for you, but I've forgotten when many of them bloom. I'm sure most of them will love your sandy soil. They should all be hardy in zone 6. Some of these are specific plant species, while others are specific cultivars. They all bloom yellow though and I plan to acquire them sometime in the future if I don't already have them!

-Verbascum nigrum
-Gentiana lutea
-Lysimachia punctata
-Solidago (goldenrod; most species and cultivars yellow)
-Berlandiera lyrata (smells like chocolate!)
-Echinacea paradoxa (there are also many cultivars, like 'sombrero yellow' for instance)
-Aurinia saxatilis
-Achillea (yarrow; most species and cultivars)
-Coreopsis (most species and cultivars)
-Kirengeshoma palmata (needs lots of shade)
-Hollyhock "Chater's Double yellow" (technically a biennial but reseeds like a perennial)
-Helianthus multiflorus 'Flore pleno'
-Heliopsis helianthoides
-Frittilaria imperialis 'Lutea' (also available in orange)
-Ligularia (most species and cultivars; needs lots of shade)
-Penstemon pinnifolius 'Mersea Yellow'
-Thalictrum Flavum 'Glaucum'
-Daylily 'Stella D'Oro' (I'm sure there are other yellow cultivars but can't think of them at the moment)

I'm sure there are many more that I'm forgetting but this is what I can think of at the moment. I actually didn't mind researching this for you. I was meaning to compile a list of yellow perennials for myself anyways. Hope this helped you out.

P.S.-How is your aglaia odorata doing (you grow this, correct?)?? I got one last year but it has unfortunately died (left it outside for ONE night below freezing by mistake, and that was all it took...).

is she depressed?? (hee hee) sorry, bad joke.

I have sprinkled any spice from the pantry, not peppers, as they could hurt her, but garlic powder, something that doesn't make her want to continue, and had luck, even lemon juice, she will learn, i would think.

good luck!!

I filled an old vitamin bottle with some change and everytime one of my dogs try to snack on anything (even grass and weeds) I give ONE good, hard shake. Over time they picked up on it.

I somehow overlooked this post. I currently have very sandy soil. There seems to be a good amount of silt/loam mixed in, but it still drains like a sieve and seems to dry out even the day after heavy rains. Keep in mind that I do water with a hose whenever I think of it and have time, but so far I have had great luck with the following:

Oriental-Trumpet (OT) hybrid lilies--these are exquisite and much more hardy and robust than oriental lilies, although the look is much the same. I planted these bulbs deep, some even with 10-12 inches of soil covering the tops of the bulbs, to help provide good ballast in my sandy soil. Second year stems on many of these are over 6 feet tall and are very thick and sturdy. LOVE them! The Longiflorum-Oriental (LO) lilies are also amazing.

Lilium regale--another exquisitely beautiful lily that thrives in well-drained soil. Also planted these deep. Second year stems are also huge and tall but they are never quite as sturdy as the OTs so may lean a bit in sun or require staking in more shade. But the fragrance and classic beauty are so worth it!

Alliums--all types. Even the giant globe types have returned and doubled in their second year with taller and larger bloom heads than the year before (!).

Echinops
Eryngium
Perovskia
Penstemon 'Dark Towers'
Asters
Callirhoe involucrata
Geranium sanguineum
Sedums

Dominoswrath - I really like 'Sunshine Blue' best of the Caryopteris I grow. The gold foliage contrasts well with other plants liking sharp drainage which tend to have silver, bluish, or green foliage, and the blue flowers look lovely against the gold foliage. It tends to be wider than tall in my garden (about 2-3' wide and about 1 1/2' tall.) My 'Dark Knight' is narrower with silvery foliage and the branches are finer and not as stiff as 'SB'. Both are nice plants, though I prefer 'SB' in my garden.

I use bone meal with bulbs, but have never had issues with animals digging them up.

I use bone meal all the time. To help prevent animals digging it I always mix it thoroughly in soil before adding it to the hole. I also add composted cow manure to dilute the smell. Water it in really good and stick a few clay pots around what you planted so the animals can't dig. After a few days the animals aren't interested, and I remove the pots. Bone meal is excellent for blooming plants. Some might not like it, but I can see the results!

Subject recently discussed in a lengthy thread -- board search function will find it if it isn't on the first page or two of the forum.

Grandma sticks plastic forks in her planting beds with the forks sticking up, but tries to disguise the forks with some mulch. Cat stays away.

Another option would be to bury mothballs underneath the mulch. Keeps cats out of houseplants too if you bury it an inch below the surface.

I would NOT put a spongy root like a Rhubarb in any bleach solution...

Hosta roots are very different.

I often use smell and color in this type of situation. If it doesn't smell like it's rotting and the color doesn't look like it's rotting, I'd leave it as is. When rhubarb rots, it turns a slimy baby poop brown.

I think I will track down White Swan. I think some of the beauty of coneflowers/echinacea is the tall stem. short? and they look like any other daisy-like flower. to me, anyway. the reflexed petals also are unique.

was overwhelmed with all the options on Bluestone Perrenials site. Fall shipment though. Interesting!!

I like White Swan too. Tall, reliable and beautiful, unless the voles get to it - mine are recovering from near vole decimation 2 years ago.

Also have a bunch of 'Primadonna White' seedlings, that are in their 3rd season. They didn't bloom the first year, were transplanted last year so it wasn't much of a show, but I'm so excited to see how they do this year along with the Pow Wow Wild Berry and Bravado seedlings. That photo of PWWB is very nice, I hope mine look like that, but in general I would have to say the other seedlings are much stronger growers than PWWB.

I just bought seeds of Echinacea 'Baby Swan' and have a bunch of little sprouts. Supposedly a short (2 foot) cultivar of White Swan.

Here's my white swan a few years back -

There was a recent thread somewhere on GW about some special way of creating beds using buried logs and twigs that help to provide moisture and oxygen to plant roots. You could probably combine that idea with the berm idea and save on money and topsoil. I can't remember what the name of the log-thing was, but it was German. Good luck.

Martha

hugelkultur (or hill culture)- beloved of permies.

I get a lot of pollinators in my garden, esp an assortment of bees. The butterflies really vary by year - I've only had a few so far this year, but again, it has only recently gotten warm. One of them was visiting my centaurea montana, which I hadn't noticed as a butterfly attractor in previous years.

Besides that, the bees are busiest around my salvia 'May Night' right now. Later in the season, the agastache and sedum 'Autumn Joy' get the most bees.

Do shrubs count? if so, then it's definitely my California Lilac shrubs (Ceanothus). I think every bee in my neighborhood (and possibly any neighborhood within a mile of here) is out there right now. I can hear the buzzing from inside my house if the window is open!

For perennials, I'd have to say my blue pincushion flower (Scabiosa). There seems to always be a steady stream of bee and butterfly activity on those. They also love my kniphofia and my Early Sunrise coreopsis.

This post was edited by flower-frenzy on Thu, Jun 13, 13 at 17:32

You may want to buy the seeds in winter :) If that is Penstemon strictus the seeds could require 3 months moist cold (40F) to break dormancy before germinating.

Yes. I will do winter sowing.