These wisteria vines came with my house. However, for four years, my heart was broken every spring when it wouldn't bloom. I finally researched this past winter, and learned that I should give them generous doses of Super phosphate. Now they are covered in hundreds of blooms.
Pic taken tonight.
Super phosphate.......my new love in the garden. Thank you, super phosphate!
I applied the super phosphate around February or early March.
Beautiful kosk! Is that catmint at the foot, or... ?? Nice combo.
Thanks! Yeah, lots of Nepeta 'Walker's Low'. Will be blooming by next week most likely, just as the wisteria fades.
Omigosh!!! At Jack's vacation house there is a MONSTER wisteria that we joked was of the rare non-blooming variety. Not one dangler in EIGHT years. I will definitely be applying the s-phos when there next week.
Is super phoshate good for other plants as well?
Irises, crape myrtle, and lilacs all get a good bloom boost from it. This bed of irises was really dwindling the past two year, and only made a handful of blooms last year. I sprinkled the superphosphate on it on the same day as the wisteria, and lots more blooms again. (For the wisteria, I dug about a 4 inch trench in a circle about 12 inches-18 inches away from the base of each vine, and dumped a lot in before covering back up with dirt.)
Pic of irises also taken tonight.
I think all of our rain can just really deplete our soil of lots of nutrients.
Upon further reading, potatoes, onions, and fruit treats also benefit from fertilizers high in phosphate. (the super-P I used was 0-20-0). I'm also going to apply it to my camellias this fall, bc they don't bloom for me either.
I thought this website was really great. Nice info. Going to read it more closely tomorrow. Pacific NW rain makes it critical that we all understand the importance of fertilizing. Steve Solomon (veggie guru in NW) stresses need to do so for veggies especially.
http://www.weekendgardener.net/garden-plants/best-garden-fertilizers-060906.htm
Good to know info and a beautiful garden. You have a good eye for design.
Well, I been busy watering! Yes, would love to meet at the nursery! My friend and I spent 2 hours there. We really gave it a look over. Everyones pictures are great.
I have two hydrangeas that each only had about 3 blooms on them. Is it too late to use the super phosphate?
Last year, I didn't have a lot of hydrangea blooms either. B/c many of mine died down to the ground from colder temps last winter. (luckily that didn't happen this year, and things look better). Hydrangea bloom on the year's prior growth (old wood), so it is possible that yours didn't make many blooms last year because of either the same prob I had or too aggressive pruning of the old wood, rather than a nutritional deficiency. My hydrangea appear to already have set blooms for this year....so it is possible that yours have also, and doubtful that any fertilizer will make a difference for this season. However, I see no harm in adding superphosphate at this time either. It helps establish a good root system, so there is never harm in that.
Hello fellow PNW gardeners! I'm Lorinda and I live in Newcastle,WA. I have been a member of Dave's Garden for a few years now. I have mostly read forums for information rather than posting, but hopefully I will do more of the latter. I'm in the process of downsizing my lawn area for vegetable and flower gardens. It's a ton of work, but should be nice some day!
If anybody knows of someone with a excavator and doesn't cost an arm and a leg, please let me know. I really need to level some area's of my yard.
Thanks,
Lorinda
Welcome, Lorinda!
Sure love to see pix of your progress, always.
Hi Lorinda and welcome to PNW. Your project sound like a lot of work but worthwhile and fun when you start planting.
>> I really need to level some area's of my yard.
I don't know your situation, but I got a lot of mileage out of the one slope I have. I cut a trench to make the downhill side even lower, then stood some 16" paving stones up on end. Now I have a raised bed plus sunken walkway.
When I walk down into the sunken walkway (trench), the soil in the bed is around knee level, and I can plant or pick with less bending. Before I put in the drainage pipe and stepping stones, the soil was around thigh-high.
Maybe you could move just a little soil, and instead of having a nasty slope, have interesting terraces and deep raised beds! It sure provides improved drainage. And a raised bed dries out and warms up earliest in the spring.
This message was edited May 29, 2012 3:30 PM
Hi (sigh), I'm sorry I have not been back, but I enjoyed all of the posts! My garden clean up went south. Yep, they cleaned up, but also cleaned out a few perennials. I'm glad I didn't ask them to do everything. So now it's up to me. I'll shovel, weed, and replant where necessary. It will be a process, but I can do it. I've done all of it before. My arms need a workout anyway, LOL...
I'm enjoying this thread. Thanks!
My sympathy, Sue. I made a similar mistake several years back. Hired some "oriental gardeners" to help with the yard. It seems that they believed that bare dirt was the only way to go in the flower beds. I also lost a lot of perennials. In addition, they barked a couple of trees with their weedwacker. Yuck! I will never hire outside help again. I'd rather have the beds look a little messy.
Thx PNWGirl, I was living away from my home at the time, so I did not have direct control. I thought the company I hired understood what I wanted as far as keeping perennials. It's alright. Moving on is my motto. What I lost, I will get it all back! My beds are a disaster. My front yard kind of looks like dirt. Like several people came in with shovels and just dug. I have nothing but positive thinking at this point. I did learn a hard and very valuable lesson.
I know how it feels to be shocked by how the message didn't get across. I ask a guy to put in my doggy septic between the gate and the shrubs. It ended up in the middle of the flower bed about fifteen away. I figure now it won't get crushed by the guys who mow the yard. LOL
The more help a man has in his garden,
the less it belongs to him.
- William M. Davies
I found a great site for garden quotes:
http://www.gardendigest.com/work.htm
http://www.gardendigest.com/quotes.htm
http://www.gardendigest.com/laws.htm
= = = = =
The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it,
but what they become by it.
- John Ruskin
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Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration.
- Lou Erickson
= = = = = =
One lady snorted and retorted when she heard someone ask a nursery clerk how she could get rid of weeds.
"On your knees! Like God intended!"
This message was edited Jul 3, 2012 9:06 PM
Great quotes. All very true.
Sue and PNW Girl,
I also had the same unfortunate thing happen to me recently. I wanted some trees moved and some basic edging and weeding done. No edging, but plenty of perinials dissapeared and 5 dead trees! I agree, i should have skipped the help and done it on my own!
The whole situation just made me sick.
Rick,
I love these sites! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks very much. I collect sayings, because I'm pretty sure that, the wiser they are, the sooner I'll forget them.
This one came from a choclate kiss wrapper:
= = =
When love is given freely, the rewards are great.
= = =
= = =
“The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths. “
Aleksandr Pushkin
= = =
= = =
Deprived of meaningful work,
men and women lose their reason for existence,
they go stark, raving mad.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
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Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.
Ben Franklin:
= = =
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Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
--Albert Einstein
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"There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle."
--Albert Einstein
= = =
Hi, I'm off-topic!
Hi off-topic, I like the Wealth one and the Deprived one.
My SO's best firend is well-to-do by my standards, BUT she was very worried that she and her husband "only" have half a million in the bank. She feels insecure and anxious about her finances.
When I first heard that, I laughed long and hard, AND felt very gratefull that I feel so abundantkly wealthy because I can pay my rent and other bills, with something left over for gardening!
A backhanded way of bragging? Or she needs to learn 'what's what'. Just wondering, not a judgement.
Oh, she's not backwards about bragging directly! I think she seriously wants to feel more secure in the level of abundance and status to which she's accustomed.
Like the Princess and the Pea, or having VERY high expectations.
Well, it's not actually that difficult to have half-a-million wiped out in a flash.
My brother briefly worked for a company awhile back that went bankrupt after being in business for several decades. The longtime employees who had faithfully invested their pension credits in company stock lost EVERYTHING.
I have a friend whose father bought a business & ran into unexpected trouble; my friend ponied up more than $1.5 million, wiping himself out, so that his parents wouldn't lose their home & everything else.
The house that I sold to a nice young couple outside Chicago in 2005 or so has lost at least a couple hundred thousand in value since then, so there goes any equity they had. I feel so bad for them.
Hmm, good points. Glad I don't have problems like that! Just "The slugs ate my Delphiniums!"
