13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

The first year I lived in my house, I treated the property with milky spore AND put up the traps. The sky practically turned black as the little buggers rushed to their death in the traps! Since that first couple of years (20 years later) I've never had a big problem with Japanese Beetles. Not sure which approach did the trick (if either), but neither one is harmful to the environment or to humans. I do know I see a lot fewer grubs in the soil now than I did then.

I'm in North Carolina and they are a horrible problem here. I have a couple of thoughts. I have had the time to kill thousands of them a week and I 'hope' that is doing some good. No one has mentioned that the way to do this is to have them fall into mildly soapy water. Their defense mechanism is to fall away from harm. I put one drop of detergent in a sauce pan of water and while it is still cool weather (they fly away when hot), place the pot below a clump of beetles and place my hand above them. The shadow or the hand or physical contact, scares them and they tumble off the leaf/leaves and fall into the pot. They drown after 15 minutes.

It appears that one beetle draws others, creating the clumping. This probably explains the changing variety of plants eaten. Roses always seem to be a favorite, but depending what else happens to be growing the best at the moment will be attacked.

I believe the best thing to do with traps is to convince ALL of your neighbors to use them and draw them away from YOUR garden, heh heh.

Virginia Waterleaf a/k/a Eastern Waterleaf, Hydrophyllum virginianum. A native wildflower, generally grows in open woodlands in rich, moist soil. Makes a nice groundcover in semi-shade, but tends to go dormant early, like July/August, especially if the soil gets dry.

Here is a link that might be useful: PLANTS profile for this species

Karen, that was a good idea to try that forum. carol23 identified it as a Hydrophyllum.

denninmi, thanks for that ID! On my side of the country, I think it's capitatum instead of virginianum, but everything else matches up. It's a native perennial to the western US and Canada. It sounds like a nice wildflower so I'm going to let it be.

I've been gardening ever since we got our house 11 years ago, and I still make big mistakes all the time!

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you guys got it all wrong.. its the 'attitude' that matters ...

you call it a mistake.. in hindsight..

i call it an EXPERIMENT.. in hindsight ...

no new knowledge is ever discovered w/o an experiment ..

so quit beating yourselves up.. and never fear the experiment ...

it is said.. you are not real gardener.. until you kill every plant 3 times ... and we can only accomplish that.. thru experimentation ... NEVER ADMIT ERROR ... or if you do.. kill them.. so they wont tell it to others.. lol

ken

There are no gardening mistakes, just composting opportunities! (Not original, I read it somewhere, but I like it a lot!)
Jan

I know everyone hates the Big Sky series, but I have Sundown-I think it was from that series-that I've had about 4 years & have seen seedlings from it. All but one have looked just like the parent plant, & the parent plants have all come back each year. I have Harvest Moon too, its seedlings came up purple though.

"Buying the seeds won't be worth the time and effort for their cost."

Seeds are definitely the way to go for plenty of plants... i have 4 trays of various plants in growth now.. but i am only referring to the original poster's note about trying out the seed of the newer fancy varieties of echinacea.

There was a thread with a similar inquiry last fall.

Based upon that discussion I am going to plant several of Little Goldstar this spring/summer.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alternative to GOLDSTURM

HEY ERIC_OH, was the seed package labeled 'Viette's Little Suzy'? Just curious. I'm glad to hear that your plants didn't get over 24 inches. That height would be just about perfect because I have the Salvia 'May Night' in back of my new 'Suzys'. I'm being very enthusiastic about this plant, so I sure hope I'm not disappointed. Say, how big were the flowers on your Little Suzy's?? I'd imagine they're smaller since the plant is smaller. I'll let Mark Viette know how well his 'Little Suzys' are doing for you.

And ROUGE21, thanks for the info on 'Little Goldstar'. I'm wondering if it's the same height as 'Little Suzy". In my search for an alternate to Goldstrum, 'Little Goldstar' was one variety I wrote down to check on. I just happened to find 'Viette's Little Suzy' locally so never searched for your plant. Nice of you to leave the link to Goldstrum alternatives.

Happy Gardening,
Summer

Another thought is whether a yellow foliaged sedum would fit your wishes. It would keep the yellow color all season and have no issues with the dryness.

Yellow Gaillardia and Sedum Angelina for the win.

yep, clematis viticella purpurea plena elegans does this very frequently until it settles down, later in the season.

I have no idea why photobucket is giving that message. I have not moved nor deleted my photos and it is doing it all over GW. sorry.

Might be, Flora - as you know, 'jack' has so many meanings in english - the pertinent bit is 'hedge' I guess because it is such a classic marginal/hedgerow plant. We do eat it quite often, along with hairy bittercress and chickweed - s'okay, a bit peppery but not really that garlicky.

This species has really taken over here, growing everywhere in semi-wooded conditions. I have been pulling a lot of it in my yard the past few weeks. It does actually work well in the kitchen. I made a very nice horseradish like condiment from the roots of this species a few years back, just cleaning them, grinding in the food processor, and mixing with vinegar and salt. The roots didn't have the garlic flavor, just horseradish. I mostly feed it to my poultry.

Highly recommend Hydrangea little honey!

Look at Leucosceptrum japonicum 'Gold Angel' as another alternative if you decide not to go with Lemon Daddy.

STEVE,just want to th you for that terrifically informative post. V Helpful!

Here's a blog entry about Euphorbia Ascot Rainbow from Avant Gardens, a nursery in Dartmouth, MA which is in zone 6. It shares their observations from growing it in pots and in the ground.

Here is a link that might be useful: Euphorbia Ascot Rainbow

Just to emphasize the correct name - it's Rudbeckia "Goldsturm" (German for "Storm of Gold"), NOT "Goldstrum" (sellers often screw this up for some reason).

Thanks everyone for sharing your experience with these two varieties and also for a correction on the spelling of "Goldsturm".

Last week I found another short compact rudbeckia variety of Black-eyed Susan that I'm excited about. I'll post here with a description for those interested.

Some great pics, there. Thanks folks. These things are beautiful.

I agree, loved looking at them since this seems to be a kind of plant I can kill faster than anyone, and have done so to every one I've had. Haven't bothered with any since moving south. Obviously I don't understand them. Are they for shade or sun? Moist or dry?

Tepelus, your purple "sugar plum" made me WOL! (Say "wow" out loud!) If I see that plant around I will have to kill buy one!

This is just gorgeous!! I have a red, orange and yellow flower bed too-I just love those colours together. Mine is just daylilies, lilies and I add tall and short snapdragons and portulacas around the edges.
I would do the bench bright red or orange so it shows up and replace the Black-eyed Susans you are going to take out with some tall spidery red or dark orange daylilies-but then I am biased!!
Thanks for posting-so many great ideas about mixing plants with flowers and neat foliage.

That is so inspiring and impressive! Thanks for sharing.