13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
I agree with flora re being careful about 'cleaning up' the woodland. I made that mistake in one area here the first year - and paid for it by weeding like crazy the next summer as all the weed seeds were now exposed to light and germinated and grew like mad! Now all leaf litter and pine needles are left to rot down in place, creating a natural duff layer that the woodland plants love. Large downed limbs or tree trunks become 'nurse logs', sheltering and feeding seedlings and young plants. So, be selective in cleaning up the woodland - i.e. remove or remediate hazards like limbs or dead trees that are at risk of falling , or tangles of underbrush that make it hard to walk about, thin out/remove unwanted splindly saplings and undesirable trees - but leave the leaf litter layer that plants and critters depend on.
Oh great stuff here. Will try and answer. Firstly, soil - it is weirdly both peaty....and sandy. It was originally an open field as late as the 1940s till early 50s, growing sugar beet. A fatal accident occurred in a drainage ditch and the original owner was grief stricken, selling it off to a company called Crown Estates, who, looking for a low maintenance crop, planted hybrid poplars. By the 1970s, the market for matches had died away and the plantation was abandoned. A later owner had the land for several years but was roundly chastised after dumping masses of hardcore and digging out a huge artificial fishing lake. He was ordered to clear the mess (which he largely did) but then left the plot for another 8 years.....when it came to us.
The land is on marshland which is vulnerable to tidal flooding (although old photos during high tides show the river inundations stopping at the woodland edge). The whole area was once dug out for peat beds and is now part of the Norfolk Broads - a huge system of man-made waterways. despite the peat, the underlying geology is chalk and consequently, is more alkaline than I would have imagined (compared to Thetford forest and the Brecklands which have thin, sandy and very acidic soil).
However, Flora, while I am keen to preserve existing biodiversity, there is very little apart from at the margins of the woodland (including, to my joy and amazement, snowdrops). Moreover, it is not really woodland by any stretch but is actually a neglected plantation of a monocrop......which gives me a degree of freedom to plant naturalised, if not entirely native species. And, in all truth, this will be my sole garden and I know I will have neither the discipline nor the passion to maintain a purely natural pallette of planting....but this does not mean I intend to run amok. Our countryside reveals the terrible evidence of irresponsible plant and animal introductions, so while there will (I hope) be hellebores, english bluebells, cow parsley, foxgloves and cranesbills, there will be no place for plants which are highly bred, sterile, or of little utility for indigenous wildlife. I am simultaneously thrilled and terrified.
The treeline starts 10metres in from the south facing boundary streams and accordingly, I have ordered white willowherb, various umbellifers, campanulas and foxgloves to make a start on what I hope will be a small hay-meadow. Unfortunately, apart from a very few tree species, there is not an abundance of local seed to collect (although I have knapweeds, scabious, silene, agrimony and meadow rue). There is a very good chance I will be able to have a stand-pipe for water as my farming neighbour grazes rare breed cattle on the marsh and has a farm next to us - with water and electricity. I can also pump water from the ditches and even the river (amazingly, I have private access to a small amount of river frontage).
Mr.Camps has had to give up work so we have time, if not money. We are both around 50ish and hope that this woodland will become our life's work, for us and succeeding generations......so we are in no hurry to do much this first year except observe, plan and sow seeds. I do have my allotments (a handy stock area) where I have my main collection of perennials and (my main love) wild roses but they are likely to be sold during the next few years. When I leased them in 2002, they were guaranteed free of development until 2012.....which seemed like an impossibly long time in the future - but here we are - developers circling and our city council is both craven and corrupt.
Without sounding overly dramatic, gardening is my life (apart from my beloved children and grandaughter, obviously) - the impetus to grow and nurture is profound and the desire for a patch of our own land surprised me by an almost visceral level of intensity. I certainly don't care for bricks and mortar to the same degree- I can face up to losing my home and living in a horsebox with equanimity, whereas a house without a space to grow is no home at all.
I thank you all for your generous and thoughtful responses and good wishes.
This product sounds like a synthetic pyrethrin derivative and not especially toxic - but among the things we don't know are how/when it breaks down and potential effects on beneficial insects like bees and some soil organisms. Pyrethrins are quite toxic to bees, and using a product that apparently has a very long duration of activity only exacerbates the problem.
Good to see you post echinaceamaniac
Your wrote: Fire Spinner...I didn't get a single bloom from it.
That was my experience as well. At least mine spread significantly last summer and *if* they make it through this tricky winter they better show me lots of flowers or I will replace them.
i tend to never fert a stressed plant ...
its already having enough trouble.. w/o you somehow burning its roots ...
if you have a decent soil.. fert is usually never a 'cure' ...
a little of this or that usually doenst hurt.. but solve your problem first..
ken
Shockwave has so far been a fantastic performer and very mildew resistant.
The flames and pixies have performed very well for me, no mildew. Great short plants.
David is a classic and a PPA winner. Nothing else needs to be said.
Minnie Pearl is one of the most mildew resistant phlox in existence. Yet most retailers don't seem to carry it despite being readily available.
I'm intrigued by 'Tiara' as it's the first double flowered phlox. Mine unfortunately didn't make it. I need to get another one.
I'm sure you all mainly want to hear about paniculata types, but 2 others I wouldn't be without:
Phlox stolonifera 'Home Fires' is a fantastic bright pink groundcover phlox for part shade.
Phlox bifida is similar to the typical creeping phlox (P. subulata) types but more clump-forming and substantial looking. GREAT plant.
I also really dig P. pilosa and P. glaberrima 'Triple Play'. 'Triple Play' has yet to bloom for me, but the variegated foliage and short habit are great. P. pilosa is the native sand phlox and a butterfly magnet (and a host for some lepidoptera... though which ones I can't remember).
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ispahan- you don't happen to have any pictures of your new phlox, do you? I'd love to see the new ones from PP nursery in Vermont. They seem to have a great selection but I think I'm too cheap to place an order myself.
I transplanted most of my phlox together into a new bed last fall. I'm hoping they put on a great show now that they are all together and in better soil. I only have a few named ones, the rest are either seedlings or no ID ones so I can't really offer any 'best phlox' comments, but Darwin's choice is starting to grow on me, mostly for the leaves, but also the flowers.
The reds just aren't happy with me and I can't seem to get a good show out of any of them..... and I also haven't found a dwarf one that I like. I understand the theory of them being better suited to smaller gardens, but really? They take up just as much square footage yet don't seem to bloom as vigorously. Plus they just look dumpy to me.
So where you infected plants on your site for more then a year?
The impatien issue is amazing. I had the most lush impatiens last year ( i was never a fan before that)... then over a few days they all lost their leaves as if it had frosted during the night. Might try the new g types next year to see what happens.
A small number of Echinacea were held over from the previous year, but those are kept in a different location and weren't brought to the retail bench until aster yellows was already present on the current season's batch. (I should clarify I'm talking my day job here, as my own nursery currently doesn't sell Echinacea)
IDM is devastating. I noticed it at work this year, it's a problem that is just appearing in WI. Indeed, from a distance before you got close enough to see the characteristics, it looked like we had a frost in August.
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-plant geek, wonderful info. Thanks much for sharing.
-Eric, Good question. Hope someone comes along with more experience that can help sort that out.
My thoughts on it...I worked at a nursery last year and the manager said some things did very poorly (arbs for one, go figure!) at over wintering because they were from CA. Not sure if there were other circumstances involved for their poor ability to overwinter (like late planting, etc).
I'm not sure how long it takes a plant to evolve enough change the hardiness and genetic makeup of it. Evolution like that takes time, but I would think awhile? Like hundreds/thousands of years, each generation passing the traits onto the next?
I would think the nursery source is something like growing hardy plants in a hothouse. Hardy plants grown in a hothouse need hardening off, but once they are they can be planted outside and survive. The cold hardines is still hardwired into them, so once they get over the initial change of temperature shock they are okay. I would imagine it would theoretically take hundreds/thousands of years of growing in that hothouse to end up REQUIRING those conditions? Just thinking out loud here I guess, lol.
I think the case of the Cercis is relating to "disjunct" plants. Populations of plants had a wider range some thousands of years ago because of warmer temps, then when things began to cool some groups developed a greater cold tolerance than those of the main populations we see today. These separate groups are known as "disjunct". Think it can also happen the other way too, some isolated groups can develop a greater heat tolerance over the years.
Guess it really all depends on where the original source it came from, if it was one of the colder or warmer groups! There was a great article about this in the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of Horticulture magazine...
CMK
Provenence is one of those misunderstood factors. Provenence is important if talking about wild collected material. It can make a big difference if a plant is collected at 2000' elevation and say again at 10000' elevation. The plant at the higher elevation is likely to be more tolerant of cold. Same with a wide ranging species. Collect one in Florida and one in Minnesota. Which one will (probably) be more cold hardy? Now make a selection based on that one collected in MN and grow it in FL, CA, GA, WI, or wherever. Besides acclimating to the current season (you wouldn't bring a plant from CA to WI in March and expect it to survive without protection for example) it will have the hardiness of its original provenance. So Oregon grown nursery stock of Cercis canadensis MN strain will be just as hardy in MN as nursery stock grown in MN.
Easiest thing to remember is provenance is the plants origin, not where it was grown. They're 2 completely different things.
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It is really pretty and looks beautiful mixed with the daisies. It sure looks mildew free, that is my complaint of the flocks, have tried different things, some work and some dont. I keep them because they are so tall and look great with the other shorter flowers. thank-you for the pic. Tricia
I've been lucky, I guess...mine have done really well. They got really bad rust their 2nd year, and the other poster is right, they don't grow back lushly when cut back hard (well, maybe they do if you give them water and fertilizer at the time...but I didn't). Last year, however, they were fabulous...and HUGE. I think they are really variable, depending on what the weather is like that year. She definitely likes to be well-watered. Stress from drying out seems to trigger rust
Here's one plant to from my garden last summer...Geranium 'Rozanne' is just to the left of 'Ann Folkard'.
-patty, lol! Same here. Year 2007 was "The Year of the Tulip" for me!! Never again...
-Scotty, so interesting you also found her rusty. Thought it was just because mine was in too much shade. Thanks for sharing you findings. Ps. love your blog! Go there for picture-pick-me-ups when I'm in a funk ;-)
CMK
While they definitely need lots of water...they aren't as prone to crisping up as Rodgersias are...at least for me. I'd definitely put them in shade and water generously until you get a feel for how they like it in your conditions. I've had mine for 2 years...and the leaves aren't huge yet...about the size of dinner plates last year. Still...the shape is really nice. The biggest problem I've had with them is protecting them from slugs when they are emerging.
C. obliqua 'Alba' and C. glabra are 2 different plants. Obliqua 'Alba' is a white form of C. obliqua and very prone to mildew. C. glabra is taller, has narrower leaves, likes slightly more moisture, and I haven't ever seen mildew on mine. I grow and sell C. glabra 'Black Ace' and it's a wonderful variety with somewhat darker foliage. Supposedly emerges with black stems. Black may be an overstatement of color. It's more smoky green. C. glabra isn't as dense as C. lyonii 'Hot Lips'. 'Hot Lips' (which I have grown for more than 10 years and also sell) isn't aggressive or invasive, but give it room. Clumps can reach 5' wide. All of them likek partial shade and plenty of moisture. They tend to grow in wet woodland edges or stream banks. C. glabra is more sun tolerant, and I often find it growing wild along streams amongst grasses and blue lobelia. All turtle heads are definitely under-used. 'Hot Lips' was in the running for PPA Perennial of the year, but lost out.
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I use local fences 5' high around garden areas or even welded wire circles around individual roses or plants. The fences are not attractive but at least let me enjoy my plants. I have deer constantly but they don't bother my one Phlox paniculata, which is in an area not near any edible plants they visit, and by the driveway. I'm actually buying some new Phlox paniculata plants this year, but they would be inside fenced areas. I am also planning on growing some P. divaricata and pilosa from seed, and was also hoping to add some annual Phlox drummondii as a ground covering carpet near my apple trees, would deer bother these if unfenced? I know deer in different parts of the country bother different plants, on the east coast I understand they eat daylilies but have never bothered mine. I also have them eat my regular roses but they don't bother my rugosa roses.
I think poppies are not generally eaten by deer, but they are probably not fragrant. I'm getting a plant of Stylophorum diphyllum which has a low clumping form and is covered with yellow flowers in spring. Oriental poppies have large but not fragrant blooms.
There are some oreganos that have nice flowers, not on par with Phlox paniculata, but attractive anyway. I haven't had deer eat any of them. I think Nepeta and Calamintha also are not eaten by deer. I had some Agastache rugosa I started from seed last year that bloomed well by fall, some were 4+ feet tall, and Agastaches are supposed to be deer resistant, but I left my wire fence open by mistake and deer got in and ate the flowers off some, see blog photos. You can see some of my fences in the photos.
Here is a link that might be useful: Agastache rugosa
CMK wrote: I would very much love to see your stealth garden if you have pics.
"My" guerrilla garden in the public park is larger in area than any garden I tend on my own property!
(I will post a picture or two in the near future...thanks for your interest).
We don't stay young forever and if you're the one doing all your own gardening one can't expand forever without up keep getting rather difficult. As for myself It's always been about that coveted plant for a special spot. Building a back bone of long living plants. Adding fillers to complement add grace and movement. As their all beginning to grow and fill in I've asked myself the same question. Will I be just as pleased when the challenge of getting that spot that just isn't working to become pleasing to the eye. Will I enjoy the beauty and be happy pulling weeds, adding compost, deadheading, ect. There will always be a plant to add and a death in the plant family here and there. How much will I miss the challenge? A spot that needs height and softening. Fun
Think I see some white edged variegation and reversion on a few stems... The exact cultivar could be Euphorbia characias 'Tasmanian Tiger'.
CMK
Yes, they do look a lot like E. 'Tasmanian Tiger'.