13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

Congrats on your seedlings! You must have good conditions for the seeds to germinate. Are they blooming this year or did they just sprout?

I have transplanted Foxgloves many times. They are tolerant of transplanting, even in the Spring. If your are small then they should transplant just fine. I would try to get a large rootball and disturb it as little as possible, and move them to a spot that's on the shady side. Then water well all summer.

My biggest concern about growing Foxglove is that it seems the crown can easily rot over the winter.

This is assorted D. purpurea in my front garden - Camelot Cream, Apricot Beauty, and some Excelsior hybrids. It was all started from seed last year. The ones in the foreground of this pic were transplanted there in April as fairly large clumps, to fill in some empty spots where the voles wiped out my perennials.

This is Digitalis 'Camelot Cream' -

I've got about 6-8 blooming stalks and many non-blooming leaf rosettes around them. I took a close look today (it was raining before) and realized I have 2 colors: the typical pink spotted, and a pale yellow/ivory, much like the one in the center of your second photo, terrene. I don't know whether it crossed or (If I did get these in a swap), there was more than one plant in the pot.
I had a bloom stalk last year, but only pink, and I only recall there being one. I usually keep records of what I plant, but drop the ball on that concept frequently.
Though it is one of the sunnier parts of my yard, it does get some shade, and it tends to be moist there.

Jennypat, I too have tried many times! That's what make me think it was from a swap, as I don't see myself buying a foxglove when I have never gotten more than a year or two out of them. But I'm always willing to try someone's seedling: I seem to have much better luck with a garden grown seeding than a full grown nursery perennial. I'm guessing they are just more adaptable when small.

True Nina, I was in the nursery during April, and they were unloading some Foxglove that was sending up blooming stalks. That was about 6 weeks before they would normally bloom in this zone. I asked an employee about that and she said that customers won't buy plants unless they're blooming.

It may be instant gratification, but it's a brief gratification to spend big money buying a short-lived bloomer like the biennial Foxglove! Sometimes you can get another year out of it if you deadhead diligently. And it's SO easy and cheap to start from seed.

Although I grow my plants hard, it is worth the reminder that plants grown in containers are a completely different proposition to plants raised in a living garden. There are some definate issues involved with the artifical pushing of containerised, greenhouse grown plants (and yes, added gibberellins and such) which I think is fair for Mosswitch to comment on. However, I have found plants to be supremely adaptable and well able to make the transition from total pampering to the frugal (some would say brutal) treatment at my hands where the only fertiliser is coming from soil and sunlightand compost, and water is a rare treat. It may even take a season of floppy lush growth before they harden off to become smaller, tougher specimens with little need for staking. It may be that they are like husbands - treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen, but mine go through a sort of trial of hardship and those which survive (a remarkably high percentage) generally continue to thrive. It is also true that watering is as much of a contentious issue as nutrients since it is far worse to offer regular watering unless you are able to continue with the same regime all season - those poor little roots, loitering near the surface in the hopes of a reviving shower compared to the deeply foraging roots which have had to work hard for a living....
My home garden, as opposed to my allotment, is almost totally pot bound - and here, I absolutely have to offer additional food and no matter how deep roots might delve, they are never going to get much further than the hard terracotta pot bottom (although there are always those which make a break for freedom through the drainage holes). Horses for courses then, with generalisations being useful if only to stimulate a wider debate.
FWIW, I would never resort to Miracle-Gro as I detest the Scott corporation and really do believe that it is the plant food equivalent of fast food - a truly junky Big Mac feast of cheap carbs and sugars.

So, do you know what kind of milkweed it is? Has it flowered for you?

Nope I have no idea what kind of milkweed, I just planted it last fall, and it has not flowered yet. I DO know it is not swamp milkweed, I have that growing wild all over the place.

I have Homestead Verbena and Nepeta growing in area that I was considering using preen. Afraid it may damage the verbena since it trails. May try something organic. Thanks for the posts!

In areas where I don't encourage self-seeding of valuable plants, I use mulch to both control weeds and feed the soil.

Preen does nothing for soil quality, obviously, has to keep being applied (the cost is not insignificant) and last I checked there was some question about its possible deleterious effect on amphibians (i.e. toads, which I encourage in the garden to keep down pests). As to whether there might be an unknown long-term health effect on humans from using a broad-spectrum herbicide, that's one more thing I don't have to think about by not using Preen.

Another Gardenweb member emailed me with the ID of this plant. It's Melilotus officinalis. I compared pictures of the plant on-line with my friend's plant and that is what it is.

Thanks for responding to my message, mindy. I'm pleased that we now know what's growing in my neighbor's yard.

Linda

Just wanted to add that this is listed as an invasive weed in areas as diverse as WI and the southeast. So your neighbor might want to rethink whether she wants this in her yard.

I have propagated Asclepias internata Ice Ballet(white) from seed. I found the plants were lacking vigour in my garden and the blooming was sparse, but then, I do not have a swamp. I do not have it anymore.

I don't have the white form. My experience was with the pink natural form, which does seem to be a good grower and bloomer. This is its third season and I was able to divide it into a good number of smaller plants this spring, all of which are rapidly growing (and already being munched by monarch caterpillars).

The leaves of my G. macchorizum has lots of small holes
for the first time ever!
A close inspection under the leaves revealed tiny green looper caterpillars. I used BT with summer hort oil esp. under the leaves.
I believe after blooming, the whole plant can be cut back for regrowth of fresh leaves.

Thanks, it must be the caterpillars.

Seeing the situation I'd really suggest making the bed much wider. There's too little room to grow anything much other than tiny edging plants if you don't want them to spill out onto the grass. Even the things you have listed as being in there already need more room unless you are happy to keep hacking them back to an artificially small size and unnatural shape. As a rule of thumb it's really best to make beds as generous as you can or they risk looking parsimonious and prissy. Your plants will have space to develop their true natures and you will not have them going through the fence to the neighbour's side. A wider bed will also be easier to keep the grass out of, which I see is already creeping in. Plus you would get a far greater sense of privacy from the neighbours. However, if you are wedded to the foot width, clematis would be perfectly happy on that fence. BTW anything behind the barbecue is at risk from the heat.

How about bluestar amsonia.

Grows great in dry prairie next to orange butterfly weed. Seeds are dust like. Likes gravel or sand and grows wild in sand in north Wi. I love them.

Great, I planted them next to and in front of some butterfly weed.

Paul

Went out this evening and took photos. I counted six caterpillars on this clump of purple milkweed.

Cameron

You can grow butterfly weed from root cuttings of young plants. If you have a young plant just cut the tap root in half and plant both parts. Now you have two. Butterfly weed will rot if not planted in well drained soil. Grows great in gravel, sand soil.

I find that bottle gentian is tough to grown in my area. I plant them with rue anemone. The rue anemone grew just fine but the bottle gentian promptly died. Not sure why, it may be the issue with PH and with sunlight.

Paul

Bottle gentian is easy to grow from fresh seed collected in October in Wi. If the seed dries out it is not viable. Bottle gentians like moist soil in sun or part shade. If you find gentian growing wild collect the seed fresh and put it in moist sand and keep in fridge until ready to sow, it needs several months of cold moist stratification to germinate. The key is never let the seed dry out and keep the seed cold. This works for all of the wild gentians. Bottle gentian is perennial where fringed is biennial and needs to be sown two years in a row to get every year bloom. I have used this in large prairie restorations and they grow like weeds, until the deer eat them, deer love bottle gentian.

Yes, a couple of hours after dark. I guess you can put out some slug repellent products. My sister said her plant leaves kept getting chewed up. It turns out that slug came out at night, munch on the plant and then went back into hiding in the morning.

Paul

It could be an earwig problem. See link below. I have a feeling I have the same problem this year because of all the rain we've been having. Since these are night feeders, it might be worth checking out after dark.

Kevin

Here is a link that might be useful: Earwig

I am with Laceyvail - don't use weedcloth in a garden! If you google weedcloth on many of the forums, you'll see lots of opinions that agree with this. Roots of woody plants from below and weed seeds that have blown in from above will root into the fabric and you will come to regret putting it in. It keeps mulch separated from the soil, so the soil doesn't get new organic matter and as the mulch breaks down and organic matter blows in you have new growing medium on top of the landscape fabric. It's an all around bad idea and the nightmare is when you decide to get rid of it . . . DH did this once many years ago and it both didn't work and was misery to remove a couple of years later.

It does have its uses - to keep drainage material from washing out from behind a dry-stacked stone retaining wall, to keep soil in a basket where you want to plant annuals, or under a walkway to separate layers of soil and drainage material, but you will come to regret ever using it where there are plants growing in a garden.

Instead of using landscape fabric, I mow down everything to ground level and sometimes will dig a few weeds that I know to be stubborn, put down heavy cardboard and then a heavy layer of medium fine mulch on top of that to a depth that settles to about 3 inches. That's enough to prevent most weeds from sprouting and to keep most of the already present weedy plants from coming up through. I let that sit for a few weeks to a year and then plant. If you are in a hurry to plant, though I can't imagine that this is a great time to plant in most areas of Colorado right now, you can use some type of contact weed killer (they range from gas flame weed torches to strong vinegar to Roundup.)

One more quick comment - since you are planning to redo the whole area, now would be a perfect time to add any soil supplements like more organic matter to help hold moisture and nutrients.

IMO the key to successful gardening is to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done the way it needs to be done.
That means not wimping out on the heavy labor :)
It's good for you- you can skip the gym that day.

Whether you are planning a new bed or rehabbing an old one the investment of time to do it right the first time is crucial. If you skip steps or do a half a**ed job you will be playing catchup and redoing things for the next ten years.

It's June already so too late for spring planting anyway.
Two choices:
Dig out all the plants.
Amend the soil.
Grab a chair, a cool drink, and study up on plants and and plan your design.
Plant in the fall.

Or if you really want a great bed:
Dig out all the plants.
Amend the soil.
Lay cardboard or layers of newspaper over the entire surface of the bed and weigh it down with compost.
Do your research and planning over the winter.
Plant and mulch in the spring.

But don't cheap out and try and do things the easy way.
You will be kicking yourself for years.