Perennials: advice on perennials for new bed area, 1 by daylily_ohio

daylily_ohio wrote:
I am in Central Ohio, zone 5... I have had perennial beds for about 30 years. I now have health issues that have caused me to eliminate 90% of the plants, and most of my beds. I have given plants away for the last several years, until I was down to my very favorite plants. Next step was to consolidate them into one bed and hope I can keep care of it, with some help now and then. So this spring, we enlarged the daylily bed that is by my front walk, as it is easy to access - close to the hose etc. I hired a guy to prepare the bed, and a friend transplanted the remaining 90 plants from various old beds around the house into the new area. The sunny part of the bed has phlox, peonies, monarda, agastache, salvias, different coreopsis, bearded iris, siberian iris, spuria iris, several shrub roses, coneflowers, heucheras, veronicas, hardy geraniums, butterfly bush, Ninebark Diablo, varigated small hydrangea and a few daylilies - and I am sure I am forgetting some things. One side of the bed is three rows of daylilies (I think there are 80 daylilies in the three rows. The end of the bed is shady from a Crabapple Prairie Fire. I've had that tree 25 years and never put anything under it... but this spring, we moved about a dozen hosta under there, hellebore, spiderwort, epimedium, wood poppy, heuchera.

I have daffodil, crocus, hyacinth bulbs to transplant this fall into the new area. Then the old beds can be smoothed out and put back to grass.

There is still room for more plants in the bed, both the sunny part and the shade part. I find that once what is blooming now is done - I won't have hardly anything in there in bloom for the rest of the year. So, trying to focus on thinking of things that bloom from mid-July to frost.

Now, need some advice - my favorite nursery may be going out of business end of this year. They have the best perennials. The other day when I was there, I got the following plants to put in the new flower bed area I made this spring.... but got to thinking that if they go out of business, the options for good perennials will be few around here. So thought I would go back and get a few more plants.
Bought the other day:
chelone - turtlehead "Hot Lips" (after buying heard it reseeds! I use pre-emergent "Snapshot," hopeful that will help)
Heliopsis - Summer Sun
Japanese Anenome - Bressingham Glow
threadleaf coreopsis - Moonray
Aster - Wood's Purple

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I thought I would go back and get two more Heliopsis "Summer Sun" and use the three of them to put where the big Jacob Cline (Kline?) monarda is that looks terrible right now. It has been planted there for several years, it's huge, but it always looks awful after it starts to bloom. Looses all it's leaves from mildew etc. It's in the center of the bed now, and not a very good focal point. Am hoping Summer Sun will come into bloom after the daylilies go out, and have color till frost.

If there are other plants you recommend, let me know - they start out the year with a huge selection - but many are sold out by now. If you think of something - tell me about it and I will check it out.

I don't think I want anything that will get over about 4-5 feet tall.
I went through their catalog and looked up some plants. Anyone have any comments on these?

Here is my list.... (hope I spell them right!)
Agastache Red Fortune - I have Blue Fortune and love it...
Cimifuga Chocoholic for the shade with the hostas - does this spread fast?
Globe Thistle because the one we moved into the bed died. Figures, the only thing that died was a thistle. LOL
Ligularia Osiris Cafe Noir - I have Britt Marie Crawford. It is huge, and I love it. OCN is supposed to be much smaller
Lysimachia A. Beaujolais
Veronica Giles Van Hees - I have Eveline and love it
Aconitum Arendsii
Spigelia - marilandica

This is a pic of part of the new bed.

This message was edited Jul 6, 2010 2:37 PM