13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

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.

I have it in the south side of my house. I've had it for a few years now. It is growing with Yucca 'Bright Edge', Opuntia (cactus,) penstemon, sedum, sepervivum, etc. The one I planted in another spot, didn't last as long. So it definitely need a dry, full sun area.
It is listed to zone 5, but I looked on Dave's and the lowest zone report was from Ellsworth, WI which would be zone 4 so you never know. But it is a very cool looking plant to grow even if it ends up as an annual for you.
Remy

Oh wow, because this was a gift from a local master gardener, I never even looked at the zones! Good news is that he gave it to me last fall, it was planted into a temporary bed, and it came back this spring, although we did have an unusually warm winter. I just moved it to a new spot, more sun than most areas of my garden, with good drainage. I guess we will see what happens.

Thanks

I could grow a lot of things in full sun without issues in my cool maritime climate that would need more shade elsewhere, but The Rocket will wilt in sun between hours of 11-4 no matter how much water its given....learned this when I lost a tree to a storm several years ago. It recovers evenings, but is a definite negative as far as interest to the bed during the day. Completely unattractive.

Well, the area will be shaded from the noon sun by a tree and a building. This is why I consider growing it there. After growing a few hosta, I can say that there's definitely enough light to grow a hosta.

Paul

I would just add some soil on top of where it is. It's late to be moving it.

I think I will just add some soil, I have two of these, in 2 different locations, and neither one is doing very well. One is about 7 years old, the other about 2. I think maybe it's to cold for them here. Although I have seen some in other gardens here that look great......sigh

The first plant that comes to mind to me is sedums, especially 'Angelina' and 'Dragonsblood' which cascade with little water or soil.

I really like the look of that Dragon's Blood Sedum! I think I might try that!

Well, nicoleternity == here is the pic I promised so that you could compare to the 2nd one in my March 12th post(above)and see how fast it grew in just a couple months. This was from digging up and dividing the original one into thirds this spring (just to give you some idea on if you cut yours back now). We have been fortunate to have plenty of rain, tho, so that helped. Don't think I've had to water that bed but once or twice so far....cross fingers....lol

Terrene - Where did you find your "Junior Walker" catmint? I see it's a new introduction this year and I can't seem to find it locally. Has it bloomed heavily yet? I have a border where I'd love the look of Walker's Low but need something smaller. Junior seems like it would work very well ...if only I could find it!! :)

I haven't looked on Prairie Moon or Everwilde's websites in a while, but usually every time I look on either they are both out of purple milkweed seeds.

So I just checked to see their availability, and I wasn't disappointed (er, rather yes), they were both out.

Karen

I bet someone has some seeds to trade. I only had 6 seeds. These aren't as easy to grow as the other varieties. I am trying one more time.

I pull them up when they get ratty looking. As Ken said, they are free seeding. Yesterday I was remembering that my MIL had given me some Johnny-Jump-ups back when I was first married. More than 25 years and one move later, their decendents are still with us, seeds having hitch-hiked with a few of the plants I brought with me when we moved. Happily, they are easy to remove where I don't want them and they don't aggressively reseed in places like the lawn. I like them for blooming until hard freeze and during late winter thaws when nothing else is blooming most years.

I'm with nhbabs. JJU's are very welcome here - right now they're blooming with the forget-me-nots. I get them in every nook and cranny and in all the gardens. An unnecessary activity, but I do spread the seeds when pulling any out... however, they'd do just as good a job on their own.

If you cut them back to the ground, they regenerate quite quickly.

Very pretty! I have not even gotten the regular Cherry Brandy to the blooming stage although I've started lots of other cultivars of Rudbeckia hirta from seed that bloomed okay.

the plant has come out quite nice now.. you can see the single type bloom on the one lower flower.