13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Yes to all of the above, love them! Foliage plays a big role in my planning. Not everybody has to be a star but we need great foliage to back up those lesser players.
Kirengeshoma is a wonderful plant with its maple-like leaves. Aruncus aethusifolius for its ferny foliage and European ginger for that wonderful shine and roundness of leaf. Thalictrum foliage is so nice too. I am sure I will think of more!
Ah, thanks Tex! Weird about the Sedum! Saw a Matrona for sale today for 12 bucks--no thanks, I'm too cheap to pay that much LOL
Casey that sounds lovely! I have what I think is an Astilboides tabularis but have always gotten it confused with another plant whose name I don't recall. Is the new growth glossy? Do you have pictures of your great choices? Thanks for chiming in!
Peren, thanks! I had a Kirengeshoma but it's disappeared over the years (gotta check for it). It was too dry where I had it--lots of root competition. Should have moved it long ago but only did it last Fall, now I'm not sure if it came back or not. Off to look up European Ginger!
You got my vote on the butt kick--how tacky can they get and can't you just picture the scene with the blower? Guess they only concern themselves with the yard they are paid to clean up. Worst part was I'd spent the day before gathering and cleaning up piles of pin oak catkins, it looked like someone had strewn horse hair stuffing all over the driveway and half the front.
'sing cuckoo'
although I have yet to hear that distinctive sign of spring...but we did see a fabulous marsh harrier touch down in the woods to eat a vole.
cammassia are the last of my spring bulbs to bloom - just getting ready to extend their petals - maybe in a day or 2.
Boy you got that right. I've got tan lines and its hot already. Air conditioner has been used several times. The car is an inferno unless the air conditioner is on, humidity is setting in making me really dread June which is downright miserable and I got a tick the other day--on my neck!
I'm working like mad to get stuff done before it really sets in and taking advantage of the cooler days for digging and transplanting but the window is closing fast. After this week of rain and roller coaster rides, I think THE DERBY will have begun. We just gotta keep our fingers crossed and get through May Tornado season and then look forward in anticipation to a long hot summer blazing down on us for the next several months. I just hope we don't have a month of consecutive 100+ degrees this year, we were lucky last year. I always get a bit apprehensive for what we are in for. Its getting serious now. Please!! no hail this week, the whole place is in full swing bloom and I don't want it beat up to heck.
It took over my yard in down town austin. It is a seed spitter . Hit me in the eye one day. I HATE this plant. I would suggest all of you to not plant it. It is an invasive. in Z8 Texas . Then again, if you are where it will get killed by the cold winter, you do not have toworry about this. I spent hours and hours and days digging it out of the ground. I finally moved and when I took my other plants I took them bare root. I did like it when I first saw it. That is why I planned it BUT I lived to rue the day. I live happily and sleep soundly Ruella free.
I'm in zone 8 also. It is extremely invasive. I bought a 3 gallon pot of it about 12 years ago and sat the pot in the flower bed in my backyard. I never got around to taking it out of the pot (young mother, went from 1 child to 3 when I had twins), but it took over the flower bed (about 3' X 10'). I finally dug everything I could out of the flower bed 3 years ago and I still have to dig up new shoots to this day. Pretty, but a horrible plant where it is hardy.
Dave - I'd rather have spring spread out across April and May! But, indeed, spring largely compressed into May is the usual situation here.
SB - inland actually often tends to warm up earlier/faster than it does close to the lake. It takes a lot of heat to moderate the cold the water absorbed over winter. Interestingly, the 'cooler by the lake' zone is quite narrow. Walking up our street away from the lake, about halfway up the street from one step to another you can feel the abrupt rise in temperature as you move out of the cool lake zone into the warmer inland zone - and vice versa walking down the street towards the lake. I'll have to check on a map but we're probably less than 1000 feet from the lake. In the fall there's a reverse effect - i.e. that inland cools down faster - and the 'warmer by the lake' in fall is a much wider zone of influence than the cool zone is in spring. In late fall it can be raining here while it's snowing a couple of km. inland. The lake has a huge impact on the growing - and working - conditions in our garden so I pay a lot of attention to it!
June is indeed peony season! I fell in love with single peonies a few years ago and have been adding more each year. I'm not sure if I'll go to the RBG plant sale this week or not - but if I do, the main thing on my shopping list is single peonies :-)
I think many of them do, Catkin (especially spring bloomers), but tulips originated on high, baked middle-eastern foothills and plains. Given similar growing conditions, they have proved to be as perennial as narcissi, crocus et al...but the widespread use of spring bulbs under deciduous trees and shrubs has led to many tulips being planted in similar circumstances...and this they will not stand for - not even Darwins or species types...apart from the latest blooming tulip - the elusive t.sprengeri...which will actually grow in a woodland clearing or dappled shade.
Thanks lisanti. I simply posted to a current thread on hardy hibiscus and didn't even look at the group name. I guess I got my answer though....I did see conflicting information on my google searches but it seems that the consensus is just as you describe. I will cut them back to near ground level once the new shoots come up. Last year, that was the last week in May here. And so far, this is a very unseasonably warm spring, so maybe a little earlier this year if the pattern holds. But we need rain bad.
Having grown up on a farm, growing was a must, but beauty was not. I don't remember growing anything that was not to be eaten. Time in the garden was just like all the rest of the farm, just different seasons. We were poor and depended on the garden, what we did not eat fresh we canned for the winter. We are pleased to see the grandchildren well enough off, that their gardening is for their enjoyment, not a necessity. Al
Vividly recall toddler memories of plants as special friends - the weeping willow that whispered above my sandbox, the bleeding heart that towered over me by the garage, the lilacs that so generously shared their perfume in amazing Spring. We moved to an old established garden when I was 4 (the house was nice, too) & my folks kept the gardener who'd tended it bi-weekly for years, having no interest in maintenance. Especially enchanted by the banks of azaleas terraced out front, crept downstairs before dawn & mastered the door lock to wander in wonder among them, returning to bed before anyone awoke, to dreams filled with gardens in bloom. (Been exploring those dreamland gardens ever since...) Tagged along with the gardener, grew to know each plant & tree & begged my own little plot to grow flowers. Given a foot deep stretch along the back fence uncultivated for years, took great two-handed effort with an adult hand trowel to pry & pound that unrelenting dirt into something approaching the tilth & scent of the proper garden beds. Had to grind some of those clods between stones & became closely acquainted with differing properties of earths, "borrowing" trowelsfull from the back of cultivated beds where only a small body could venture without notice. Treasured gifts of a child-sized watering can with a colorful decal of "Mary, Mary, how does your garden grow?" beneath Mary watering her flowers and packets of marigolds & morning glories. So began my life as an eager participant in the great magic of the natural world - a gardener.
My son expressed vague mumbles of the "that's nice" variety over the years but never seemed interested until he bought his first home with established greenery but few flowers. Began asking advice & specifics about this & that in a manner that showed he had been paying attention after all. Borrowing a stack from my bookshelf & supplied with clumps from this garden, he began adding flower gardens to his own. Marrying shortly after, his wife caught the bug. Together they cleared & planted a vegetable garden, put up a compost bin, landscaped a steep hill, built a pond & a deck, created expanding garden beds. Twelve years in, they're still going strong in the garden.
Mom became a gardener when my folks retired & Poppa became intrigued as well. She shared stories of her mother having a green thumb & winning prizes for her dahlias, saying I was just like her, out in the garden at all hours. So the contagion jumps in all directions along the generations. The gardener after my own heart is my granddaughter, who's grown up in both gardens. From stroking the lamb's ears as a baby to our jaunts through garden aisles sniffing, exploring & discussing the offerings, she's absorbed familiarity along with the keen sense of magic. Now a preteen, she responded somewhat indignantly "I know my flowers!" when recently quizzed during a garden stroll. Along with Latin & common names, indeed she does. May the joy of gardening grow with her & hers liveslong.