13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Depending on how much sun the area gets, here are a few low-maintenance suggestions that might at least get you started:
- Carex 'Ice Dance'/Japanese sedge grass - variegated green/white
- Hosta 'Dream Weaver' - variegated blue-green/cream
- Aquilegia/Columbine 'Tower White'
- Alchemilla mollis/lady's mantle
- Heuchera/coral bells 'Snow Angel' - variegated green/white mottled foliage
- Hemerocallis/daylily 'Ice Carnival' or 'New Falling Stars'
- Brunnera macrophylla/Siberian bugloss 'Jack Frost'
- Hellebore/Lenten rose
- Persicaria virginiana/fleeceflower
- Dicentra eximia/fern leaf bleeding heart
- Lobelia siphilitica/great blue lobelia
- Weigela 'White Knight'
I have these plus many others growing on the mostly shaded north side of my house, among them blue hydrangea but there are white hydrangeas available as well.
coated with some rooting powder
===>>> first off.. have you ever read the instructions... most indicate to DUST the piece ... and blow off all excess ... there can be a whole world of difference between a dusting and a coating ...
second .... TIMING is one of the more precise things associated with rooting material .... some plants require new fresh growth.. others older material .. and this would be the prime consideration of when your odds will increase ... it is not really a function of when you break a piece off.. rather than the right piece.. in the right season ...
then once you get past TIMING .... you have to master all these things:
media
humidity
light
sterilization
etc, ad nauseum
as noted.. humidity on a plant with no roots is probably the most important.. since it will have to adsorb all the water it can get while it starts growing roots to do the job ..
all that said.. i am excited by your enthusiasm .. and propagation is a very good way to increase the bounty of your garden ... but it goes way beyond breaking off some pieces and stabbing wildly at success... been there done that.. and suffered the odds you have ... lol ..
below is a picture of a little .. CHEAP.. setup for rooting things ... i sterilized everything with bleach or heat [including the media as soil holds too many negatives] .. in the proper season for conifers in this case .. made the proper cut.. dusted with rooting hormone.. and placed them on a heat mat under lights for 3 months ... 25% success rate ... in your case.. just put the tent in a bright but fully shaded area .. and see what happens ...
ken
I don't know exactly what happened to her Cotinus.
If helps here's a pic of ours right now...
I had pruned out the largest stem to the ground early spring as suggested by the nursery when I purchased it last fall at 80% off in good health in a 20 gal pot.
The part I cut was 1 1/2 thick" & 3' tall. The remaining part was only 1/2" thick, so younger growth & I decided to leave it. I planted the bed quite dense with perennials & also included annuals like snapdragons, lunaria, & bachelor buttons. I won't need those next year.
My notes on the smoke bush (don't remember from whom):
To get the best foliage color out of a purple-leaved smokebush. Early each spring, cut the shrub back to within a foot of the ground. The technique -- called stooling -- may seem drastic, but the payoff is nearly immediate: lush and large-leaved four-foot pillars of deep wine reds or chocolate purples, depending on the cultivar you buy.
Of course, if you do whack back the shrub, forget about the smoke. By removing the current season's woody growth, you've nuked the flowers (and therefore the silklike hairs on the spent floral plumes that give the plant its common name). For a smoking bush, just let it grow.
And, might I add, grow. The shrub resents pruning (as opposed to stooling) and will develop gangly, whiplike stems to spite you if you try to keep it small.
Coppicing or partial coppicing yields a fresh, graceful, manageable plant, while heading back the entire plant partway will produce a congested mass.
Here is a link that might be useful: pruning guide
I join in the suggestion of Rudbeckia Herbstone one of my favorite plants. Over the years the clump gets a bit wider but it is basically a tall vertical plant 5 to 7 ft tall. It does not need staking. It blooms for me from late July into November with a bit of deadheading, lovely yellow reflexed daisies. Normally no pests or diseases.
Except for flora, no one from a mild climate responded. I had it in a front garden in a rental on the Monterey bay in California. As a last resort I removed all the bedding plants and set up a screen with 1/2 inch hardware cloth and with a shovel ran all the soil through it. I still did not get all the small bulblets, but most of them. By watching very closely in the next two years I was finely through with them. If you want to know if they are aggressive, the answer is yes. Al
Blue Sea Holly has to be the worst plant ever!!!!
we sold it last year and and as soon as it went on to the pernnial table every fly in the world came buy to hang out with these plants. it got to the point where we had to move it to its own table.
i think i rather sell cat poop on a stick!!! then that plant again...
I have grown them all, except maritimum, which belongs to sand dunes. After many years I've found out the only one worth growing is a hybrid with a name Forncett Ultra(from UK). It is reliably perennial, practically indestructable, unless the roots are eaten by something. Eryngium alpinum is very easy to propagate from seeds if you allow it, but big clumps are more succeptible to winter rot than young plants. So they are never really old to make a very big impact, unless you're lucky. Erygnium planum is a terrible flopper, don't waste your time on it(though there is a dwarf cultivar, don't remember the name), it is rather short-lived.
Warning though: after many years Forncett Ultra can send some short runners.
As far as the ornamental value of the flowers is concerned, none can beat really blue individuals of E.alpinum.
It was a mixed blessing Dee--the storm also knocked out power for 10 hours so no lights, no supper, no A/C or fans, no water or facilities that whole time. The storm hit just as I got home from work too so there wasn't even time to fill a kettle with water or grab a flashlight.
Not so good here in IL, one night I got 7 inches of rainfall in a few hours. This caused the ground to saturate so much that the sump pump weren't able to keep up, so the basement got slightly wet near the sump pump. We were fortunate, our neighbor's basement flooded. Some of the plants got flooded and died.
Paul
Those are the seed pods of something in the Brassica (cabbage) family. Could be kale, broccoli or any number of similar things. There would have been 4 petalled yellow flowers before the pods.