13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Yes, it is very prickly!! :)
I wish the birds would plant it in other areas. I haven't seen any saplings around the base that I can actually get to without being pricked, so I'd have to remove some stems. I was hoping to be able to propagate from cuttings (the article says I can, but the link is broken), which I've only ever done with succulents, so I guess I'll try it and see how it goes.
Yes I am in Central Texas, near Lockhart, with blackland clay soil.
The article posted above hel
I am out by Hamilton Pool area on the fracture zone of the Edwards Plateau.... limestone marly stuff. If you want, I can dig up a few and pot them up. We could meet in Austin or San Marcus. I find them sprouting under where birds like to collect. They will sprout under trees too.
Yes, the plant is a bit vicious, but not much. but it stays in one spot so I am not afraid. One can make jam out of the berries.The deer do not bother it which is a huge plus around here, and it does not take over. It also is a mother plant for other species because it protects seedlings from the voracious deer. It is a plus in the wild.. It is my holly substitute. They are not that fast a grower. There is a silver leafed one that I would love to get my hands on. there is also Texas Barberry that is a relative of it that only grows in my area. I have an immense one that a biologist was aghast when he saw the size.
MIn3, my dream too. But I will settle for my husband fixing the lights on my 16' trailer so I can go myself. I have asked for rocks more than once. I always pick up some when I go swimming down by the river. My large backpack and car are sorely overworked. I want larger rocks... never too many of them.
Right now we have a "cold spell", temperatures just below freezing, a powder of snow, and most of the plants keep going.
I picked those Hellebores and ivy today, gratefull to find anything, tomorrow is my aunt's burial, and I wanted to bring flowers but not just any greenhouse stuff or heavily sprayed flowers flown in from Africa or southern America.
She gardened as well, different style, but we could talk plant stuff hours for ages. So, a thanks to all tough winter flowering plants ( and our mild climate...),
Have a nice weekend, bye, Lin
That's interesting. My 'La Belle' spreads some via the roots (I figure it is because of its sterility), but never had it happen on my plain persicifolias.
Did she mean specifically that those cultivars don't spread as aggressively by seed? If so I wish I would have gotten those before and saved a lot of problems, lol!
CMK
I LOVE all your support.
Unfortunately, Nova Scotia is being hit with its first real winter storm - I've been out shovelling three times (insanity!)
Boy, am I ever dreaming of gardening now!
Then again, you may all have to come dig me out of a snow bank come spring (I'll be sprouting along with the LOTV:):)
Cheers,
Dina
Dear Peren.all,
Cement….brilliant!!!!
Hmmmmmmm…..first, I'll dig that trench to Australia, then…
I'm seriously impressed, but also because of the spring runoff you mention - I'll have to show your photos to my husband to see what he thinks - we have sloping on the west side of the house (you can see the sloping in that first photo I posted-- the spring runoff seeped into a crack the first spring we were here. He dug down and repaired it, but I think at some point, we need to look at a longer term solution.
Do keep us updated on that battle of the Titans:)
Cheers,
Dina
Mmm, I shocked even myself last summer with an outrageous combo of pink and orange - a gaudy, but continually blooming mallow - anisodontea El Royo (I think) and a very cheerful geum, Totally Tangerine and a couple of small, but very orange-ey daylilies. A libertia peregrinans and a bronzey, but fairly generic heuchera. several shrubby salvias....hellfire crocosmia (and citronella?), another very red hemerocallis and my rose, mutabilis....I like these hot colours with deeper plums/bronzes (think I might stick a chocolate cosmos in the mix this year). Enough slashes of green to keep some balance but, yep, I really liked that part of my flower bed..
Yeah, am completely in agreement with Annette (not about oranges, obvs,), but that any colour can be fabulous.
Suum quique - Latin for "To Each His Own' (Okay, be impressed: I learned that back in 8th grade, C. 1963).
I don't like orange flowers but don't put down other gardeners who do. My garden doesn't need to please anyone except me... and it does.
I like blue. Always have, I'm guessing I always will. Blue doesn't always lend itself to the garden but I appreciate when it does. Bronze colors don't interest me but that's a personal preference since it doesn't fit in with my vision of my garden beds. Can't honestly say the color offends me.
Black flowers hold no attraction in my mind. I acknowledge they may be dramatic to some and offer some contrast I can't see. I don't apologize for not finding them attractive or compelling.
I may not agree that any flower color can be fabulous, the originator must take into account that observers may find the color either offensive or unimpressive.
pinusresinosa, I agree about hollyhocks. The garden centers stopped carrying them because "they are your grandmothers perennial" or "they are not popular". So now people have not seen them and are re-discovering them. 20 years ago a red hollyhock was the center of my Gertrude Jekyll color border.
MBWD
My favourite of 2014 was a new coneflower, Raspberry Truffle - despite being new, it didn't stop blooming all summer and all fall until frost. Incredible!
Another surprise was an astilbe 'Fanal' that I almost threw in the compost last year because it had performed so poorly for 2 years in a row.
And since many of you talked about delphiniums; I only have one pic taken the day after hurricane Arthur - I was shocked at how well both the delphiniums and foxglove (in the foreground) faired out. Also, both the foxgloves and delphiniums bloomed 3 times after shearing them last summer.
Meanwhile, the biggest disappointment were the peonies! We had a very cold spring and so they bloomed later than usual, but the hot sun faded them right out.
Here is a nasty one. Dictamnus. Commonly known as gas plant. It can cause a nasty rash much like poison ivy. It is a lovely long living plant, with great clean foliage all season, much like peonies. I had it in our yard in Michigan and loved it. The vapor it emits will flash burn if a lit match is held very close, hence 'gas plant'. Dh, after a very bad reaction when mulching around it has forbidden me to have it in my garden beds in this home.
I have a gasplant - very pretty - but I think I'll be evicting it this spring for the reasons noted by others above! The rose population has been whittled down over the last few years too. I guess I'm getting to be a cautious wimp as time goes by... :-) I love those colourful and interesting cactus pictures above - but I'm content to admire them from a distance via photos!
not a sniff here - although, looking at the lunar landscape which used to be my spring border, it is entirely likely that any little bulbs are now mashed beyond redemption due to puppies insane burying habits (must starve the little sod) Have reluctantly bid farewell to a whole slew of erythroniums I planted last year and the one remaining yellow hellebore (which I mistakenly thought was hidden and inaccessible) is nothing more than a crushed stump. Since we seem to be going backwards in pee training - puppy shivers in garden, looking witless and pathetic only to pee on kitchen floor as soon as she races back inside, I am having deep regrets about the wisdom of getting a new dog in winter...especially since my only 2 warm jumpers have been either claimed for the dogbed (as if it ever stoops to actually sleeping in this rather than on my bed)...or chewed.
Am seriously doubting the wisdom of the internet which cautions us to 'avoid shouting at puppy, at all times as it will become confused and neurotic'.As opposed to incontinent and lazily triumphant?
Hey PSG! We did get some of that "wet stuff falling from the sky" - actually quite a lot of it in 24 hours, after a record January without ONE SINGLE DROP! You can bet my garden and trees were doing a happy dance along with me. I had put out every tub and bucket I have and many overflowed but I'm afraid we will be back to whining about our drought pretty soon. Your three gallons a minute seems better than a treasure of gold to me! I'm always glad your area is as beautiful as ever though. Min
My plot at home is 18 steps long and 9 steps wide. The allotment is a half plot, so 125 sq metres - about 1345 square feet - but I only grow vegetables there with a few self sown annual flowers. It's plenty for me. If I had more space it would become a source of guilt for not being out there enough.