13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

Just to clear things up: the white part is a sun burn. It is all yellow in shade.

It definitely looks like Kerria japonica however mine was always in mostly shade and bloomed just yellow. It was reliably hardy in my then-Zone 5b garden. It grew larger year after year but never seeded around and after 20+ years was still what I would categorize as a well-behaved perennial shrub. It was never bothered by pests in my experience.

If you do not want to go with a Eupatorium, how about a baptisia or an aster? Both can tolerate dryness.

Both are excellent choices. One gives flowering in the late spring/early summer and the other in the late summer.

(Has anyone had first hand experience with the Decadence line-up of the more compact, vigorous Baptisia?)

This post was edited by rouge21 on Tue, Jun 4, 13 at 5:53

I have Baptisia 'Purple Smoke' in an area that gets about 3 hours of sun and it flops so that I have to support it. I don't know if 4.5 hours is enough sun to make it happier.

In my experience E. perfoliatum prefers it fairly damp, growing rampantly on the sunny floodplain of our stream, but not anywhere higher up. Where I have seen it elsewhere in drier spots, the foliage looks tattered. It seeds around into places where it is happy. Like Joe Pye weed, boneset is a favorite of insects when it is bloom.

I am in a lower zone, so you should check these out locally, but they have all looked great for me all summer:
Dianthus 'Greystone' (trim off bloom stalks after flowering is finished) - sun
Cranberry/Vaccinium macrocarpon - sun to 3/4 shade
Veronica 'Georgia Blue' - sun to 3/4 shade

If you don't mind an aggressive spreader, vinca/periwinkle is a great groundcover, but mine crawls over barriers into the lawn.

Snow in Summer always looked pretty bad for me after flowering, even when I trimmed it back.

I love pink knotweed. It's always covered in little pink buttons and does well in the heat here in Sacramento. I have it in full, hot sun and it stays beautiful all through summer.

It can spread quickly, but with regular trimming it hasn't choked anything out in my beds.

Dee please keep us posted if you are successful. I would really like a baby from my white one.

I have tried everything everyone has told me and from my research. The branches that nicked and pulled to the ground are still there not rooted last year. Maybe it will take a couple of years. This will be year two. I have not checked maybe they did root over the winter.

I have rooted some common rhododendrons. There can be a huge difference between individual varieties how easy they grow roots, from easy ones to nearly impossible. The ordinary R.catawbiense Grandiflorum roots easily. The easiest one is the old Cunninghams White.

The white rhododendron in the picture above looks like R.catawbiense Album.

There is a book(but do not remember the title at the moment) with an extensive list of cultivars divided according to the easiness of rooting.

I have mine in mostly shade growing around my mailbox. They are perfect for shade gardens. I have dark purple, pink, and the wild native ones that are pink with a yellow center. All of mine were from seed trades on here. Along with my fall blooming toad lilies, they are my favorite shade flower. I will be putting some columbine seeds up for trade soon. I have so many seed pods developing this year.

My relationship with the bought ones was short (they die after year 3 at the latest). But they left me with a lot of babies, one uglier than the other.

Yeona, some azaleas have a very strong fragrance(especially Soir de Paris and Jolie Madamme), you can smell it from a distance. Some are fragrant if you put your nose into the flowers. Some do not have any detectable fragrance. None of them has an unpleasant smell(unlike tree peonies, which can have horrifying smell)

I have added some new pictures(I HATE the new photobucket, can't find anything)

Some double clones of Ranunculus ficaria

Trillium erectum album

Brunnera Jack Frost and Trillium albidum

A very pale Uvularia grandiflora(very late to emerge and bloom in comparison to the dark yellow ones)

A very intense pink clone of Podophyllum peltatum. Emerges much later than the others.

A lighter pink one

Smilacina racemosa amplexicaulis, from North West USA. Taller than the straight species. Very fragrant, my pet plant.

Double Trillium grandiflorum

Wow, it's huge! Thanks for all the helpful comments and pictures. Good thing I asked, I was thinking it would be a few feet high like my regular Rudbeckia, but clearly this is a different beast altogether.

It is pretty, though!

It has never produced a runner here. It is a real clumper.

An Aesculus, but not hippocastanum. You could try the Name the Plant Forum or the Tree Forum for further input.

My Rodgersia aesculifolia has identical leaves.

The scent is strongest before the flowers fully open.

Thanks for the info. If I remember correctly, it was around 1:30pm when we were walking along the shores of Mackinac. It was extremely fragrant but very heavenly. Lilac is very strong too but milkweed's fragrance embarrasses the fragrance of lilacs. :)

Nothing grows faster than Creeping jenny. I pull it out by the handfuls in spring to try to keep it in check and still have to do more during the summer to try to control it. I never fertilize it or give it any care

It looks like there are still spots of it alive, I'd Give it a bit of fertilizer and water and stand back and watch it grow. IF the roots are still alive it may send out new growth

Thanks to everyone for their comments, the encouragement, and for the compliment! :-)

Yeah I've had creeping jenny for several years, and I know how fast it grows. I just wasn't sure if it had been killed past the point of it recovering, without me having to re-establish it with plugs. Would prefer not to have to do that. Y'know, at what point does a plant become so defoliated that it cannot recover --- I know it varies for each plant, and creeping jenny being so robust is probably pretty tough. I was just hoping that a) it would come back, and b) it would come back fast, without me having to wait the whole season.

I'd be happy to send sawflies your way... :-) All I do to control my creeping jenny is to hand-pull it from around the bases of the plants in spring, and then when I mow along where the grass meets the bed, it gets a lot of it. If it starts going into the grass too far I just spray a little Round Up between the bed and the lawn, and that will keep it contained all season. I don't mind doing that too much because when it's established it chokes out the weeds pretty well, and I don't have to mulch the bed every year.

We have had a lot of rain in the last day or two, and it seems to be responding to that. I'm seeing new growths at the ends, but not as much along the stems yet. But at least now there is new growth, which means they aren't going to just keel over.

For all its aggressiveness, creeping jenny does make a nice background in a bed. My neighbors all ooh and ahh over how great the bed looks. Haven't heard much of that lately, so I'm guessing it's because the creeping jenny isn't looking so great.

Thanks again!

RyseRyse, sounds like a few things. It could be the soil, light, age of the plant. All geranium do not demand the same conditions. I have some that like full sun, some that perform and grow perfect in the shade in horrible soil. One dose not like good soil.

If you find a plant that does not react the way your want it for the position in your garden and you do not have alternate space to plant it to make it happy then the only thing you can do is dig it out and get a plant that makes you happy.

Gardening is a challenge. I had a normal Suburban yard so I know how hard it is to have limited space. I am not in that position now. I move plants around until I find its happy place. I do not blame the plant.

Double post sorry

This post was edited by marquest on Mon, Jun 3, 13 at 13:40