13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials

note in cats pix ... how the daylight is different in each pic ... leaning more toward the diffuse dusk light i was talking about ... but for that one pic of the chard ... [cloudy days are good also]
i usually grab my camera .. digital ... and go tour the yard... an hour after dinner or so ... 7 to 8 oclock ... as i have found ... that the light at that time is extremely forgiving ... dawn also ...
when the sun is high in the sky ... forget about it ...
ken

could they have been greenhouse grown ... and you put them in direct sun???
on shipping shock .. and transplanting shock ... etc ..... look to the small newly emerging buds and leaves .. for the future .. and if they look fine.. dont worry about the plant sacrificing some of the older leaves ...
considering what it gone thru in the last month.. looks pretty fat and happy to me ... are you a worrier???
besides.... its a catmint.. i am not aware you can kill them.. without some hardcore malice.. lol ...
ken


Hmmm, the same thing almost happened to my Cobham Gold, I managed to save a few outer bits and having it up and growing again, we had a very mild winter but wet. I'm scratching my head over it because all the rest of the shastas are doing just fine.
I love shastas for that punch of white and... they all don't stink. 'Summer Snowball' one of my favs...

Annette


it looks like a verbascum to me. I googled (brilliant, I know!) large fuzzy gray leaved perennial and saw verbascum bombyciferum in the fourth or fifth row of pictures that sorta matched your picture. VERY interesting plant! If you google v...b... and look at the "images", it'll show it in different stages AND four in a row etc. YOU decide if you like it and want to keep it and its friends...verbascums can seed mightily!


sigh, after shrinkage and sinkage (?), I am looking at having to do the same with my large raised bed - already something of a nightmare to reach all parts without climbing into it. The seep holes I added when I built it have been losing soil for the past 3 years (although I have tried to toss it back in the bed) and the level is now underneath the coping, creating a perfect habitat/hotel for every mollusc in the area. After losing an entire tray of verbena stricta which was balanced on said coping, I have conceded defeat until autumn when I will take the whole thing apart and replant. 2 years of mild winters has increased our pest numbers to apocalyptic levels ...so much so that I am considering digging into my piggybank and buying some nematode slug treatments...which pains me as I am cheap, broke and constitutionally opposed to spending £££ on sprays and drenches.
Annoyingly, there is also a baptisia in this bed...but as it snivels under a large euonymous, it has remained minuscule(ish).

i wait too long during a miserable winter .. to ruin a good show ..
just mark it.. with a irrigation flag.. or surveyors tape ... jsut something bright ...
and as the show begins to fade.. just do.. what need be done ...
this is your second.. third.. 4th..post.. about tap roots ...
just do what you need to do ... and dont worry about such ... you gotta do.. what you gotta do ... and whatever happens.. happens.. to the plant ...
and you know.. on a 2 to 3 foot plant... you could probably leave it where it is.. and just taper the new soil down as you come to it.. so what if it APPEARS a bit short to standard ...
on some level.. you might be being a bit retentive on the level of soil .. ma nature is a bit less ..
keep up the good work ...
ken

Yes, the foliage is great. I had a baptisia in my old garden years ago and never really fell in love with it. Took up too much real estate for the short show. I got rid of it at some point in time and never missed it. Then I got a small start of 'Twilite Prairieblues' from the owner of my nursery who was growing on various baptisia cultivars for retail sale. WOW! It took off, bloomed like crazy the first year and hasn't stopped impressing me since. Has gotten really big over the last three years and I noticed dozens of flower buds when I was weeding that area a couple of days ago. Should be quite a show with its bicolored violet-blue and yellow flowers. Can't wait!
Baptisia 'Twilite Prairieblues'

Sounds as if you put out a nice welcome package for them. Good luck! It would be fun to watch them I would think.
Not mason territory here, but green metallic bees like our sandy soil. As their landlord, my job consists only of reminding everyone those are not little ant mounds, and that they will not like the consequences if they harm them. Not much exciting to see activity-wise at their home. They are pretty visiting flowers though.

Well, I missed a couple cocoons in the tubes, and they're still there - they're probably goners by now. Today I did notice one tube (out of oh, maybe 30 or so) was capped off, so someone moved in - YAY! Hope at least a few more tubes will get capped, but I guess one is better than none, and if that small brood does well next spring, the population will be on the upsping :0)



I did see one with emerging leaves, but the guys that delivered mulch buried everything and burned those leaves off and killed a bunch of emerging perennials. I'm so depressed! They torched my tulips bulbs-which two days ago looked fabulous!

I don't have the planters put together yet. They are 5'W x 2'D x 2'H and will have evergreen shrubs in the back along with other plants and draping plants in the front.
My last place was Zone 5 also. I believe Creeping Jenny is good to Zone 2.
I'll take a look at your other suggestions. Thanks

I have had creeping jenny, the golden variety, in my hanging baskets. At the end of each season I leave the plastic basket in the yard. The creeping jenny looks dead but springs to life quickly in the spring. I am in zone 5. Then all I need do is re-plant the basket with more annuals, or pull out the jenny root balls, change the potting mix, and re-plant.
My husband dumped one of the baskets in the garden last fall. I was out of town, and told him to dump the dirt of any basket hit by frost into the garden. Now I have several small golden jennies going to town in the garden. I will have to get them out of there quickly. I have a side garden (the “purple and gold” bed) where I do allow it to grow unimpeded: because it can’t escape into more valuable real estate.
Though they are small and hard to see, creeping jenny flowers and sets seed. Not a lot, but some. So watch where your planters are for unwanted volunteers at the base.



My guess is Peltoboykinia tellimoides ...
CMK
peltoboykinia
christin, that's it! I recall the name now...the data banks aren't what they used to be!