13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
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.
I also don't grow Tutti Frutti, but have other Agastaches and haven't had the voles do any damage beyond occasionally exposing roots as they tunnel, but they don't seem to eat or enjoy the Agastaches. I think the real threat to A. Tutti Frutti is winter wet. I've come to terms with the fact that while I love the Agastaches that are western species and hybrids, I can't be sure that they will winter over, even when they are supposed to be hardy. I plant them in sandy soil on a slope (or a raised mound), don't cut them back until I start to see growth in the spring, hope for the best, and sometimes have to replace them. So enjoy it this summer, but if it doesn't survive, it is likely to be the fault of the weather and cold wet soil rather than you. I don't know if growing this as a container plant in well-drained media will work or not, but I've done that with some of the not quite hardy western Salvias with success, bringing the pot into a bright cool area (sunporch) for the winter.
hi Ilovemy trees, I am in 5b too (Central IL) and I have gardened for years and just started having a very little bit of rabbit trouble (They disappeared two good sized petunia plants in full bloom) last summer. But over the winter the voles cleared out almost the whole flower bed along the garage: obedience plants, a mass of probably 4x2 that I have had for 10 years (5 teensy plants remaining), 1/2 of a really nice geranium that was probably at least a foot wide at the bass, several helianthus, a lot of bee balm, who knows what else. Another smaller bed they "took out" a beautiful napeta, completely imploded it, two teensy sprigs sticking out of the mound of soil, surprisingly left alone a 2 foot mass of white iris...too early to tell if they got my Henry Eilers BES, and the Double Trouble sneezeweed. Durn rascals! My brother had excellent luck with mousetraps baited with slightly chewed tootsie rolls, but I have a nosey dog and can't do traps. Guess it'll be annuals in those beds this year. Boo hoo. So much of gardening is trial and error...plus what works this year backfires next year. It seems like I have a run of daisies one year, and then next year it's the bee balm that shines. The voles nibbled the bark off my yew bushes on one side of the house! But they are staying green and healthy looking so far! So don't put all your eggs in one basket!
Not sure I would (say it was a delph)...but mainly because the stems of delphs always appear well-formed and visible with that amount of foliage...and that fat, pale stem would be the decider, to my mind. Of course, we are looking at a foreshortened image and, in truth, I would really only put money on something from the ranunculaceae family without further evidence.
Best place would be a plant nursery. Even on-line (a good way of buying ferns as they are easily packed and posted). I am extremely sceptical when seeing bare-root ferns that these have not been simply dug up from the wild. Possibly not such a crime in the US but in the UK, this sort of thing is heinous behaviour - and is, in fact, quite illegal.
No disrespect to you, Linnea - the likes of Walmart are not renowned for their ethics though.
Catkin, thanks! Princess Diana clematis comes from a British hybridizer, Barry Fretwell, 1984, so maybe granddaughter Charlotte Elizabeth Diana will grow it herself one day. Appreciate the info!
You're welcome! Thank you for the Clematis scoop!