My 2 new Lavateras are flopping over (prostrate). They look like drunk octopi with bald spots in their middles. They started growing very profusely after I put them into the ground, then "plop", they dropped their branches onto the rest of the flowerbed, and are choking their neighbors out of existence (including a new Knockout Rose that is fighting back gamely).
They have the best sun in my yard: full afternoon sun and some AM sun. The summer was dry, but I watered rather a lot.
I may have over-watered and over-fertilized, but I stopped fertilizing around a month ago.
I put them into a deep new bed with other things, where the other things wanted water and fertilizer.
What did I do wrong?
Can I correct it this year?
Tie them up, to poles?
Cut them back while they are floweirng profusely? :-(
Just wait for next year, and trim them back to 1-2 feet in very early spring?
I bought them online from Hirts, in 8 tiny pots (2"?) and they were just tiny leaves smothered in moss, grass and even weeds. I kept them indoors under light for months, potted up to quarts when they were clearly not dead. They got root-bound before i got their new bed into shape. I think they went into the ground around May or June (cool weather here). They grew very fast, and flopped over flat around the time they flowered (mid-late July).
They are allegedly "Barnsley" but the blooms are plain pink, as if they had reverted while they were still just tiny leaves from the vendor.
I have several more plants, VERY root bound, in bigger pots, but the only places I have available to plant them (with any sun) are pure clay, or scarce flower beds. (I have a tiny yard, mostly pretty heavy shade).
Would it make sense to just add a little sand and manure to some clay and throw some of the root-bound extras into it? In case the current two have to be uprooted and abandoned? That's a pain becauase if I dig down, I have to create a drainage ditch.
Would it be practical to "park" some of the root-bound plants in a temporary bed where I know I will have to evict them next year? Can you do that to lavatera?
Thanks for any tips or opinions.
Rick Corey
(a novice gardener in the pacific NorthWet)
My new Lavateras are flopping over (prostrate)
Excess water and fertilizer (particularly fertilizer with a lot of nitrogen in it) can make things grow quickly, and when things grow quickly all that new growth will typically be floppy as well. There's really no way to correct it this year if you want to continue to enjoy blooms, but for next year if you cut them back and lay off the water & fertilizer then you can hopefully keep them more compact. I don't know about Lavatera, but with some plants if you pinch them early in the season that can also help keep things more compact. They are tallish plants anyway, so even if you do things right they still may be a little prone to flopping over, so staking can also help. That would also be your best solution for this year if you want to try and do something.
As far as your rootbound plants, if you want to put them in your temporary bed that would work, or else if you'd rather keep them in pots then just pot them up to the next larger pot size to buy yourself some more time. When you repot, make sure you buy potting mix that's designed for containers, don't use your garden soil since it is too heavy and won't drain well. Also try to tease the roots apart a bit when you repot them, this will encourage them to expand into the larger pot.
Thanks, ecrane3.
I guess I pampered them too much.
I think I'll either prune or stake up the limbs that are most oppressing the Knockout rose.
And I'll keep thinking about either sacrificing them or trying to transplant them away from my main flowerbed.
I wanted them right there as a screen between myself and my neighbor, plus that is one of the few places I have with either sun or soil (and it now has both). Two years ago it was a bald spot with weeds trying to grow on clay and rocks: not even crabgrass had a chance! Now it's 2-3 feet depp with organics because I thought "perrenial bushes need deep soil".
But I want the rest of that bed even more than I wnat these two bequtiful bushes!
If you like them there and you're willing to stake them if they get too floppy, then there's no reason you couldn't leave them there.
Maybe pruning and staking, combined, will contain them enough. A neighbor has (what I thought was) an identical plant, about 1/10th the diameter of my "babies". I had planned on rows of flowers or snow peas or Bok Choy around these guys, but noooo ....
Thanks for your suggestions.
I planted a Lavatera (plain pink - though I'm sure it was labelled Barnsley, too) a couple of years ago. I haven't ever fertilized it. The first year was a cold winter for us and it died back to the ground. The second year was a winter with an early frost, but a warmer winter. I know that initially it was floppy and I had to support it.
This spring it shot out of the ground to 8 feet and looked awesome. But a month ago I came back into town after that hot weekend and 1/4 of it had flopped to the ground. It was split at the root into two plants.
So it wasn't soil that was spectacularly rich in nitrogen that did it for me. I the plant in general has a tendency to do this. I'm seeing lots of references on the Internet to this tendency.
Thanks!
RickCorey, I also read today about Barnsley that after a season or two the plant reverts to the pink form. I wonder if that's what happened to yours (and maybe mine).
I beleive it. In my case, they "reverted" before the mailorder babies were 1" tall!
They are pretty anyway.
Yes, sounds more like a mismarking to me . . .
I got mine from 'Hirt's Greenhouse & Flowers', which has as many negative ratings as positive in DG's Vendor Watchdog. Some of the negative reviews were very negative. One other person commented that the wrong plants had been shipped.
One person order fertilizer X, and received an order of fertilizer Y, with an "X" UPC code glued over the "Y" code!
Several poeple noted that "customer service" wouldn't even talk to them.
Oh, well!
Corey
Garden Watchdog can be pretty helpful . . .