13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
I've had mine for 3 years and it does okay compared to the others. I will say it's not as floriferous as my other echs and the plant stays fairly compact. I do like the green flowers though so I keep it around and have collected seed from it to see it will throw any interest into the gene pool.
Thanks ken, I looked at some of the results and they're all talking about cane yuccas, the tree kinds, but then I finally found one person who said fall was the time to divide the clumping kind. I guess I'll try that and see what happens.... Even though I don't picture the leaves making it through a fall transplanting that well, but it can't look any worse than the divisions made in spring.
Weird for a plant that is almost indestructible.
Neil - I cut back my weigela each year because I planted it too close to my walkway, thinking (erroneously) that it grew to a very minimal (2 ft.) height. It actually gets 5 ft. tall & wide so it's a bit of a problem where it's currently growing. I prune mine back each year after it finishes flowering and, as campanula pointed out, thus far it doesn't appear to suffer from that. It's thriving in fact & currently has rather a wide habit. Even pruning doesn't keep it "in bounds" as much as I need. I've observed that each season it grows back to it's maximum height & width so I offered it to my neighbor next door. I tend to tend her flowerbeds in addition to my own.
As for the Siberian iris, the biggest concern with growing them in dappled shade might be diminished blooms but so far I haven't observed that to be the case in my Z6 garden. It's been my experience they're pretty much indestructible and bullet-proof as well as pest & disease-free.
I agree with miclino - more pictures of the overall garden, rather than close-ups of specific plants, would be good. I remember your thread on building the pergola and the garden. It looks like everything is growing and filling in well so I would like to see pictures that show how it is shaping up overall... DH has a tendency to take all garden pictures as close-ups too - unless I specifically state ' you have to include [whatever] so I can see the context' :-)
People here have good ideas I've never heard of. Sunflowers, who would have thought it? They wouldn't fit into spots I have in mind.
I know about the "chelsea chop" but never heard it called that. Been cutting and pinching back at least once early in the season phlox,monarda,asters,astermoeia (whatever it is called now), boltonia for years.
I'm sure the centhrantus can take it but I wouldn't dare try it on the poppies.
I don't have an interest in achillea anymore. But huge orange poppies with geranium magnificum and tall purple allium and a dash of yellow something are too gorgeous to give up. Honest, it gives me the biggest thrill of the gardening year. This year I propped the poppies up earlly with pea sticks and a harness and they look ok. The geranium magnificum is big and floppy too, but pea sticks work very well.
Can the geranium be cut back before blooming and still flower successfully? Of course if the bloom is delayed too much it won't flower with the poppy.
I find the idea of sinking a pot with the correct medium interesting. Can't hurt to try.
Thanks everyone,
idabean/Marie
Lobelia cardinalis 'Queen Victoria' is a cultivar of cardinal flower with purple foliage. It has red flowers, not blue. From what I hear, it's not that hardy and won't over winter in cold zones.
It sounds like your plant was mismarked in the first place, and that you originally had some cultivar of Lobelia siphilitica (Great blue lobelia). The plant you have now doesn't look like either.
mid summer is a lull in fragrance....
but come august.. the hosta species plantaginea... with its 6 inch trumpet flowers is sublime ... as well as many of its progeny.. like royal standard... etc ...
also.. here in the great white north.. august is time for many things that self seeded... to finally peak .. and a large area of 4 o'clocks.. can fragrance the whole yard ....
and then in fall... the fragrant autumn clematis ...
and then its winter.. and its all over ...
my point.. if you missed it.. is that there is NOT one 'best' ...
you need to plant for fragrance.. in waves.... so they bloom... one after another.. always with something coming.. something to anticipate ...
my theory.. for whats its worth ... is that the scent is a bee attractant... and by the heat of the summer.. bees are not as active.. most of their work done ... so things sorta peter out .... also.. a lot of the late summer things.. are night bloomers.. attracting the night pollinators... like moths ... [both the 4 o'clocks.. and the plantaginea]
ken
Viburnum carlesii, Lilacs, Rose 'Rhapsody in Blue', Honeysuckle, Mockorange, Kolkwitzia, Variegated iris blooms smell like grape juice, Honey Bee Blue Agastache smells like rootbeer when you touch the leaves or harvest the seeds. Lilies, 'Casa Blanca' & 'Orania', Butterfly Bush, Herbs like Fennel and Basil. Four OClocks as Ken mentioned will drift their fragrance over a 25 foot area on a warm night. Heliotrope in pots have that vanilla scent.
Campanula - So far I haven't had the luxury of becoming bored. Zoning regulations in the town where I live require no less than an acre of property per dwelling. While I don't necessarily pine for a 'postage stamp,' the swath I'm required to maintain is already roughly six times the amount of space I can even dream of singlehandedly caring for and planting. Fortunately I have the help of migrant workers from Guatemala who gladly share the labor and willingly perform the most back-breaking tasks.
Additionally, I can't say any two years running have been repeat performances in my garden thanks to extreme weather events--the October Snowstorm (2011)*, Storm Sandy (2012) & various hurricanes & tornadoes. My sun/shade patterns were altered due to extreme weather which impacted how things grew in the beds I so carefully designed & planted.
* when I was without power/phone/running water for a total of 11 days straight & had to keep my woodstove down in the cellar fired up 24 hrs. a day
Trust me when I say boredom has not been a factor.
Neil - thanks to the consequences of my parents planting things they didn't know/had no way of knowing were invasives 50 years ago, I'm very cautious about what I plant. Every state has an invasive plant list posted on the Internet which I check before setting anything into the ground.
Don't skip your due diligence before you commit what might be a colossal error & keep a large jug of vinegar in your garage year-round so you can eradicate any errors without introducing poisonous chemicals into your garden soil. Vinegar kills everything it touches--I use it primarily on poison ivy & violets--but at least it eventually dissipates (unlike Preen or other chemicals) without poisoning the soil for generations to come.
Keep in mind, Neil, that things which grow with such exuberance do so because they're invasive and you may regret planting them down the road when you attempt to remove them from your garden. When I first moved here after my Mom died, I actually hired a neighbor with a backhoe to remove lily-of-the-valley that had overtaken my front foundation beds. Who'da thunk that would be an invasive?
Don't mean to rain on your parade but a conscientious gardener thinks a lot more these days before planting. Sure would hate to read a GW post down the road about what you wish you hadn't planted.
Thank you so much gardenweed for the guidance. I will definitely be watchful. I'll also do more research before implementing something.
Btw, I'm out right now in the yard. It's 11:45pm, maybe 50f. A bit cold especially I'm just wearing shorts and a shirt. I'm enjoying the fragrance of Honeylocust's flower behind me.
I've planted Honeysuckle Goldflame today. She is really beautiful and the fragrance is out of this world. The fragrance is still not strong yet.
Again, thank you so much!
I would say 'yes' - give them a careful trim. I have been deadheading mine. They don't need a trim yet. Cutting Back in the Spring
Cut back the tips of the stems of your purple verbena in the spring to encourage branching. You'll have stockier, bushier plants with more blooms as a result. Water the plant thoroughly and apply fertilizer to further encourage growth and blooms.
Cutting Back to Stimulate Blooming
Cut back purple verbena if blooming wanes in midsummer. Trim a quarter of the height and width of the plant using grass cutters or scissors. Then, water the purple verbena thoroughly, and apply liquid fertilizer diluted to half the strength recommended by the manufacturer for standard use.
Here is a link that might be useful: Do You Cut Back Purple Verbena?
I think Ken is being serious, and I think its a possibility but its not a border plant and those on the border are not affected at all so seems unlikely. Nevertheless, I did wash the plant down for several minutes. I doubt the roots are rotting, its a dryish spot with root competition from a crimson sentry maple tree. Bugs and fungus I have not ruled out completely, will do more digging in the morning.
I have grown Incarvillea in the past, but only I. delavayii seems to show up in the nurseries, and then only very rarely. (I may see only one plant every three years, or so.) I looked up the other species you mentioned, and they look nice. I will have to check out if they will grow in our climate, and debate with myself about going the mail order route.
I love rehmannia and they grow well here. It is one of those never-too-many plants that I encourage to grow everywhere throughout the yard. I made some new beds recently by removing some concrete, and went shopping for 5 1 gal. rehmannias to plant. But both nurseries were out. They are offered off and on throughout the year, so I will wait or move some starts.
I have a gasplant that would start out neat but splay out as the season wore on. I inverted an old tomato cage (they are useless for tomatoes anyway), cut off the pointy ends and bent them into "U" shapes and used them to anchor the cage to the ground. Works with sedums too, so I imagine salvias could benefit from being "caged".
My patio stones and the area around my vegetable garden are filled with various creeping thymes, and when they are in flower the humming of the bees is nearly deafening. The bees are so drunk with pollen that they pay no attention at all to people. In all the years I have walked through these areas, i have never been stung. I wouldn't walk through barefoot, however, though I do walk in sandals.
I have good luck with Liquid Fence. The deer were a big problem and ate my hosta. I put the liquid fence on, and the hosta recovered. There is also a granular called Repels All.
I've been getting rolls of flexible fencing and cutting it to size to fit around the plants. My bunnies only seem to go after the plants while they're still young. Once they start blooming, I remove the fencing and they tend to leave it alone. I do this will all bunny favorites.