13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Beautiful photos of beautiful blooms! Thanks Annette!
Yes, color can be tricky, between the camera and the monitor one views the photos on. That's why I asked about the color of the OP's iris, as I don't think I've ever since SI this dark blue. I'm thinking that "in real life" they are more of a purple, but either way they are gorgeous.
let's just keep trying and let each other know what conditions it needs to keep coming back. we're in 6b but it was zone 5 for a hundred years so i don't know how much i trust that. i think it's where it is. if it's protected in a corner bed and not subject to drying winds and it can reseed itself it will.
I'm in zone 7 so I can't help out as far as if it can be winter hardy to zone 5, but I will tell you during the warmer growing months it spreads quite a lot, but not undesireably so, being so pretty and easy to cut back into bounds if you want it to stay more put. I don't mind at all that it has weaved through its neighboring plants! I planted 'Homestead Purple' in front of some daylillies and it wandered all the way to the back of them. The touch of purple poking up through the strappy daylilly leaves looks very, very nice.
They spread by the lower stems which turn woody and root when they touch the ground. If a runner gets longer than you want it you can chop off the woody stem and move the rooted end and plant it somewhere else. I used to think you had to get a rooted piece to make another plant but I discovered you can also just cut off a non-rooted green stem and stick it in the ground. I found that out when I cut off a long flowering stem that was hanging way over the edge of the bed. I was going to throw it away but it was such a pretty and healthy piece I wandered if I could pinch off the lower-most 3 or 4 pairs of leaves and just stick the stem in the dirt. I made a pencil-shaped hole and plunged the stem in all the way to where the first set of leaves was at soil level. There was even a flower at the top of the stem that I didn't bother to remove which had wilted by the next day, but the stem grew new leaves in just a matter of days. Easy as pie.
Although I haven't tried it, I don't know why you couldn't overwinter your 'Homestead Purple' in the garage. Seems like it would work to me. I would sure give it a try.
Yeah, I grow them (Polly, Pippa et al) and they are reliably perennial, even in rough grass. I am less keen on the washed out peachy colours though. The third season, they have clearly hybridised with something because there are seed heads - not anything like as full or fat as the usual d.purpurea, but I will sow the seeds and see what emerges. My favourite digitalis this year (2 actually) is the d.heywoodii 'Silver Fox' (great silvery foliage) and the little Spanish d,obscura 'Dusty Maid' - a sort of subshrub, bushy orange-y bloom which looks lovely in a gravel bed.
I have something spreading through my native shade bed that I haven't identified yet. Maybe I can find the photo and you can help me.
Does anyone recognize these? Here is a larger area.
There is a circle of sticks that indicates a central/original group that I planted. There is a marker for Mist Flower nearby. Could that be what they are? If so, I am cautiously thrilled, because they are wonderful nectar plants. But, might be a little more enthusiastic than I realized. I have Monarda fistulosa that I think is also growing like gangbusters, but it is in a spot where there is more room to grow. Let me know what you think.
Martha
Someone on the forums here once referred to columbines as "promiscuous" and I thought that was a funny but rather accurate description! They wander at will, via self-seeding, and mix with others freely as well, leading to the garden crosses gardengal refers to above. I have so many columbine seedlings in so many spots in my yard, that they are one of the few plants I don't feel bad about weeding out in the early spring. Don't get me wrong, I usually weed around them, but if I pull one by mistake, or they are growing smack in the middle of another plant, I don't feel bad yanking them.
Luckily for me so far, most of mine have stayed fairly true to their original variety, or at least color! I actually have a lot of Green Apples, (which in my garden are actually white) which I don't particularly love, but I leave them because hey, it's something in bloom and everyone else seems to like them! And truth be told, I don't know till almost bloom time what color they will be, and I can't bring myself to yank them at that late time!
you would leave some seed to mature [as compared to deadheading] .. and when they are brown .. they are standing upright ... .. and when open .... you could just dump the seed in your hand.. or an envelop ...
since you know they are doing it by themselves ... that would mean.. you could replant immediately ... no need to store the seed until some magic time ..
ken
Floral_uk - Gorgeous!
ogrose_tx - both of those are very pretty. I miss having poppies! When we first moved into our home 17 years ago we had them, in one spot, but that's become overgrown and I haven't seen them for years. I think I need to direct sow and try again.
I just saw some ninebark at my nursery on Monday. Fell in love! I have the perfect spot for it! Shovel pruning? Wow! My neighbor always laughs when I exit the garage with shovel in hand. I bought a Siberian Motherwort that was pretty in the pot, but weedy in the garden. Gone! I "pruned" a baptisia, but it came back. Roots must go on a ways. My artemesia had a baby and I gifted that one to a co-worker.
I am in the process of moving and dividing a number of daylilies as they are now in too much shade, digging up and potting seedlings. Of course weeding, weeding, weeding. Have started staking my big guys - persicaria polymorpha, lespedezas, baptisias. I have to laugh when I see in gardening magazines all those designs for 'sitting areas' in the garden. HA! I don't the resident gardener would ever use them. Too much to do and so little time.
From the patent, Lynnet.
"Variety of salvia plant named 'Haeumenarc' US PP13322 P2".
Confusingly, 'Marcus' seems to be subsequently treated as an alternative cultivar name for 'Haeumenarc'.
"The new variety was discovered as a naturally occurring mutation of 'Ostfriesland' (East Friesland) (unpatented) in a bed of sage plants in Stuttgart, Germany in the summer of 1998."
A confusion here: 'Ostfriesland' itself is said to be sterile.
Does that mean that 'Marcus' appeared as a branch mutation? I'm not thinking so.
Also in the patent literature: "The new variety was first asexually reproduced in 1999 by cuttings in Stuttgart, Germany.
Another confusion is that the garden Salvia cultivars (often assigned to Salvia nemorosa) are rather interspecific hybrids or interspecific-hybrid hybrids.
I have had mixed success with delphiniums. I have one in the small front bed I call the 'teardrop' bed (because of its shape) that was planted as a seedling in spring 2005 when that bed was created. That delphinium has come back every year since and flowers twice - once in late June- early July, and again in September. Others from the same batch of seedlings disappeared in about 5 years. The main difference that I can think of that might account for the success of this one when the others petered out is that this one is planted smack against the concrete paver brick edging, which is on top of a base of compacted limestone screenings, while the others were in the interior of beds, away from a source of lime. I've always heard that you should lime your delphiniums.... I'm not sure exactly what kind of delphinium it is. I grew both Magic Fountains and something called Crystal Springs (which I haven't seen around lately) and I'm not sure which this one is. Both those types are short ones - I didn't want to have to bother with staking!
Based on my experience, I'd suggest adding source of lime to the planting hole - e.g. some broken concrete.
There is a native central delphinium (well there are actually several of course), but I wanted to talk about D. exaltatum (Tall Larkspur), that has done quite well for several years in my zone 7 upper south garden. It's worth a try if you are willing to have just a small purple flower, the foliage is rather attractive in my opinion, and late flowering is quite welcome in the garden when blue/purple is often lacking.Mo Botanical Garden Link to Delph