13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
too hot... too dry... I'm trying to get a darn gardenia established here and while I don't mind watering it, I'd rather mother nature did her part too. If I water too much, root rot. If I water too little she's fried. and given the dryness of the surrounding soil and the ever thirsty silver maple...
and I'm sick and tired of the huge number of robins who've stripped my goumi, cherries, serviceberries, and blueberries before things even had a chance to ripen to edibility....
~Chills
In my area of western PA, we are in a drought. I don't remember ever having a June this dry. Last week, the local newspaper said that we have had less than 2 inches of rain for the month of June. The grass in our front lawn has gone dormant already, looking like it does sometimes in August. Frankly, I don't remember the last really good rain that we had this month. It had to be weeks ago, perhaps it was at the end of May. We are watering constantly, using a sprinkler, and starting at one side of the house and moving it around, and putting it on beds not next to the house, finishing up, waiting a couple of days and starting again. I had dug some volunteer echinaceas for the neighbors and the dirt an inch down is like powder. Most of the beds are mulched but even that hasn't helped much. I've watched rain/storms go above, below and around us. Not much we can do, I guess, but continue to water until Mother Nature kicks in some much needed rain.
Linda
Mine have been in clay soil for years so don't get any wider than two feet across. I have drainage problems too but they thrive somehow. I use mine as a border against a shed. Have six in a row and they do fine besides the occassional flattening by the groundhog.
I have one in a flower bed with Agastache and other perennials like Echinaceas, Coreopsis, and Hesperaloe 'Brakelights'. It is a nice contrast for purples and reds. Ornamental Grasses and Roses look good with it too.
I also have 3 in big urn planters with Sedums and Delospermas around them. They don't get 4 feet wide unless you let the offshoot pups stay and grow there. I usually separate mine and put them in other places. They root and separate really easily.
I was thinking delosperma too, but like I said it's been years since I grew this plant. I may have had some moss rose in this bed at one point, but again - it's been at least 10 years since I've had that around.
This bed is one of my hardest - SW location and on the dry side since there are a lot of tree roots around. The odd thing is that I wanted to try delosperma again, but since it's not readily available around here, I never got any. I had made a mental note to put it on my list for ordering next year. Maybe I don't have too now.
Kevin
Boy, June seems really late to be dividing grasses, but maybe your climate is very different from mine. If I don't get it done by late April or the first week of May I don't do it. For one thing, I like dividing them when they are only a few inches tall. If I allow them to get too big, it just gets so messy and the plants look too ratty for too long. When I do it very early, the plants seem to recover quickly although they won't grow to their ultimate height the first year. They still look good however.
Kevin
I've heard of it, all right, but not seen it. I did some on-line research after your post, and I'm not sold on CD having that. Every site I read mentions a few other symptoms, such as yellowing leaves with green veins, reddish colored leaves, twisted petals - the normal blooming flowers DO have twisted petals, but they are supposed to in this variety, tiny twisted leaf-like clusters coming out of the flowers,stunted growth, among other things. My plant has none of these, just healthy looking centers with no petals on some of the flower heads.
I'm sixty this year and have seen a lot of weird things through my years of gardening. One year, I bought some echinacea seeds on ebay that were opened pollinated varieties of the some of the early-newer varieties being introduced. Art's Pride was one, and there were others that I never see mentioned or sold anymore. A friend who has a green house started them for me and gave back the seedlings, which I potted up. When they bloomed, there were some really odd looking flowers. I had some with centers and no petals, some with tightly quilled petals that never opened up - I know, they sell one like this now!, and some with teeny tiny petals around a large center. I figured that the genetics of these echies were causing the different looking flowers. The brother of another gardening friend took them and has been growing them now. I've not talked to him in a while, and I wonder if he is still growing them. Anyway, this is the first time I've seen a healthy looking Shasta Daisy put out normal flowers and flowers with normal looking centers with no petals. I guess I was wondering if there could be a genetic issue here too. If it is indeed Aster Yellows, I'd like to be sure, and I'd then destroy the plant. I have no problem doing that.
Possibly, it depends on what is growing under there and how tender it is. Because the area gets full sun later in the day, though, I think you won't have much trouble.
Even if you do, they will recover. I had some large, dense evergreens removed a few years ago, which had a bed of myrtle and some struggling hostas underneath. They received no sun at all, then bam, instant full sunlight. They fried really badly, but soon recovered. I moved the hosta but left the myrtle, and its thriving in full sun.
I think boxwood topiary would be an excellent idea for the semi-shade. I'm a big boxwood fan anyway, you can't really kill it. I have one poor bush that looks like a doughnut now because something chewed the center out, but it keeps going.
There are several choices of dwarf rhododendrons that would stay much smaller but still serve the purpose.
Experience has taught me that those masonary retaining walls almost always affect the PH of the soil. This would not be a problem for the boxwood or maple, but could be for the Rhododendron. I recommend a soil test before you try an acid loving plant.
Daylillies, the Japanese Forest grass suggested already, or hosta could all be used and are easy to grow (if you don't have too many voles).
I finally dug out all of the Monarda that I had because I couldn't stand the PM it always got after it was finished flowering plus the plant simply looked ugly after flowering. I am not a fan of the foliage. My gardens have drip hoses installed under mulch and all other plants around it did well. Nothing I ever did improved its appearance. In flower it was lovely, but afterward it was awful.
Zoecat, it seems to do okay with medium-moist soil and does really well in part sun. Since I have practically NO full sun in this yard I'm grateful when a plant thrives in part sun.
Yes the foliage can get ratty looking, but Monarda is not the only perennial that gets ugly foliage by any means. It's hard to have a perfect looking garden all season long. I wouldn't be without it, it's so beautiful and the pollinators just love it. My red Monarda is just starting to bloom and the hummers are already checking it anxiously.
I don't know if the main stem always dies. All I do is diligently deadhead and give them some compost approx. once per year. You can leave a stalk or 2 if you want to have seed, because it makes a zillion tiny seeds in each pod (similar to Foxglove). Actually, I do the very same thing with Digitalis purpurea, and sometimes get a 3rd year out of that biennial.
That lasagne bed was made with a layer of cardboard, an inch or two of coffee grounds, a layer of leaves, and a bit of other misc. organic matter. It was not very deep - maybe 3-4 inches. I created it over the summer and fall, mostly to kill the Vinca and weeds underneath, and started planting the next Spring. The bed got even better the next year or two as the organic matter continued to decompose!
Everything in that bed grows really well - except for Foxglove - one year I had HUGE beautiful clumps started from seed and the crowns just rotted over the winter. Too rich and moist I am guessing?
I just love Cardinal flower and it is also the hummer's favorite, at least in my garden!
Thanks a2zmom - things are a little disjointed this year with bloom times being all over the board. You can really tell what likes heat and what likes sun. Some flowers are blooming 3 weeks ahead of time.
I had tip in Garden Gate about 6 months ago about a spread sheet I keep for bloom times. Many things are blooming a month early this year.
Lost some daylilies for some unknown reason - I thought those were indestructible. Only one kind, the ones right next to them are great! Weird.
My observation of Osteospermum is that it doesn't bloom well in the heat of summer under good conditions, more of a cool weather plant that goes green in summer and will bloom again towards fall. However, I haven't really messed with them for a few years, some of the newer ones may be better in the heat and longer days. Dahlias, as you already know, are for the most part short-day plants, although it varies and some will bloom better in the summer than others.
About all I can suggest is using a fertilizer with moderate N and higher in P and K to help promote flowers, there are a lot of these "bloom booster" type fertilizers on the market.
At the end of my post david883, I said that I think you might already have L periclymenum. If it flowers only at the ends of the shoots and not along their length, then that is what you have. Did you check to see if it does indeed have flower buds like I thought I could see?
a hateful acanthus - Mr Camps had 'insisted' on this and I put up with its hugely vicious and graceless habit for several years - long enough for it to become a rampaging thug, leaning over and threatening a delicate small leafed philadelphus. Had to get my boys in to help so I made use of their youth and vigour and ordered the destruction of a horrid phormium (Mr.bloody Camps again - supposedly one of the much smaller P.cookianum, but still massive - lurking mealybugs and snails made great use of the indestructible leaves ).Heaps and heaps of valerian (but I will guarantee there will be a hidden smidgeon, waiting to blow around the allotment. Numerous verbascums (there was a mini-craze for these a few years ago, in the UK) - gets chomped by mullein moth and totally falls over every year. Note, all these plants so far have also had socking great root systems so I am not expecting this to be a one-off job - I have been yanking a lurid Beauty of Livermere oriental poppy for the past 4 years. The two gigantic clumps of daylilies (common old H.fulva) are really counted as weeding, along with a zillion verbena bonariensis but the removal of the sad and stunted balloon flowers - never got any taller than 9 inches and just looked ridiculous with oversized blooms - that was a yanking moment. Unfond farewells to lobelia cardinalis, knautia macedonica (1 is quite enough) nepeta Walker's Low - I know it's invaluable but it smells horrible and finally, the last of the bearded iris - such a faff for less than a week then nothing to disguise the hideous leaves for the rest of the summer.
I don't have to yank anything, they die naturally if I don't water for the next few months.
Everything is zone related!