tabasco.....You don't need a coop....You need to move to Alabama.......:)
Paul from same........:)
what are you sorry you planted..
Ugh Oh, I've got Maypop-----in the ground. Oop's.....
Rose Campion. It is every where. In the garden, on the Road banks, In the neighbors yard,In the cracks of the drive way. Oh did I mention it is EVERYWHERE. LOL
Oh dear! I have lots of Rose Campion that I'd planned on putting in my front garden. Maybe not now?
Now, I think in z. 5 UT you might be okay with rose campion. It's dry there, right? So much has to do with finding the right climate for a plant, but not too right. Did that come out sounding right?
Maybe I'll just keep it in a pot? Where I was going to put it is watered a lot.
Doesn't Rose Campion reseed instead of having invasive runners? If you use the flowers as cut flowers, would that take care of the problem? I am asking because it is in flower here.
Suzy
Yes, it's best way of traveling is reseeding. That worked for a while for me until I had to be gone for a few weeks one time, at the time that I should've been cutting them off. Viola 150 more of them the next season. I actually don't mind weeding the campion so much, here, in my soil, it pulls out very easily and doesn't return from whatever root remnants there might be. i love the grey foliage, so I let it stay and just deal with it. I have many, many worse plants than that.
I just yanked out 4 bushel baskets of 'Obedient Plant' if anyone wants some. It was supposed to be "Miss Manners" cultivar but I don't think so!
I'm still watching for the 'Black & Blue Salvia trade thread' to start up. I had to put mine to rest yesterday too. Just didn't make it through the winter and I'd love to try another one!
I am preparing a few boxes of Verbena bonarienses seedlings to send off to butterfly gardeners, and if anyone here wants some seedlings, d-mail me with your address. First come first served. Some find it invasive in the garden, especially in the south. Others have a difficult time getting it to grow, so I don't know how it will work for you, but the butterflies do love it whereever they are...
pycnanthemum-mountain mint, it's the only thing that's ever spread speedily in my garden(besides REAL weeds). At least it smells good, when you pull it out... I'm going to plant eupatorium this spring, I hope it will spread a little, & even though I saw some cool chartreuse & purple foliaged lysimachia(2 different plants) at the garden center, I am resisting....
My B&B salvia certainly returns reliably here in St Louis.
In fact, it borders on being too aggressive.
But it flowers beautifully during a time of year when flowers are hard to come by.
So I put up with having to pull up some runners each year to keep it in bounds.
Maybe I am not growing B&B in a good place...Robin, can you tell me where you have yours, and how well protected it is?
Suzy
Ours grows about everywhere.
It's initial location was in nice loamy soil w/ morning sun and afternoon shade.
I don't have very many locations like that, as you might imagine.
But since then, we've transplanted divisions to a moist shady hillside and to much poorer soil in partial sun.
It has done fine in all locations, though my experience w/ the latter two is only a year or two.
Weerobin--is St. Louis in hardiness Zone 6?
Yes, Tabasco, we're in 6a.
Well, Mine wasn't happy last winter and didn't come back, but I don't know why. It was in a raised bed and should have been happy-happy-happy. I now have it in a sandier soil, maybe that will help.
Thanks for the info. Your winters are a lot like ours, same with your summers, but you do have a 2 week longer growing season...but that shouldn't have mattered one bit.
Suzy
Anthemis tinctoria.. I hate that stuff... reseeds like mad and I find it everwhere..parts of the lawn are now an anthemis lawn which I don't mind, but I have pulled it out of my beds and thrown it into the compost pile...probably another mistake.
Verbena bonariensis. Two years in my yard and now it is coming up everywhere. I have spent all my spring garden time trying to get rid of it. It is everywhere. Hopefully mulching this weekend will help.
Karen
Paul,
Don't blame your wife for the gooseneck loosestrife. A garden designer put it in my garden plan. The three that were installed proceeded to kill everything else in the bed with their relentless march. I used round-up, but ended up eradicating them by pulling them up by hand, and being stunned to find that a plant would send a runner four feet away! Fortunately I caught it within three months of installation. The thing that fascinates me is that it's in garden catalogs!
The other thing I've noticed is that you have to be very wary with "gifts" from some gardeners. They can't bring themselves to kill the loathsome thing so they make "gifts" of invasive plants. I've declined things only to have the person drive up with a boxful of the plant. I've learned to smile, say thank you, set it aside and do some research. I've been offered lily of the valley, violets, obedient plant (what a misnomer) and monarda (and not the mildew free kind). Code words like "spreading", "vigorous" and other such mean the plant is headed for the trash.
Donna
Donna - I love your note on code words like "spreading" and "vigorous"--it's so true! It's like the way realtors use terms like "cozy" (tiny!) and "great starter home" (needs a ton of work; that's why it's so cheap!).
Nothing, without exception, goes in the ground here without some prior research. Occasionally I put things in that I know are likely to spread, but I do it with full knowledge of the possibilities and a decision to deal with the consequences.
Underground runners, though, are particularly difficult to live with.
Oh, I only wish my husband had read this thread five years ago!
Verbena bonariensis is one I wish I had never planted too! It not only reseeds everywhere but also survives here as a perennial. I told myself last year that I'd dead head it, forgot to do it and now am pulling out seedlings and the original plants.
I have a billion verbena b and nicotiana alata. But here they do not survive as perennials (for which I am grateful). So I takes the clumps of seedlings (easily 100 in a couple of square inches for nikkis) and scratch them out with trowel in spring. It cracks me up that White Flower Farm has been selling these two plants for almost $20 for a group of three. Nicotiana alata can uproot the roots of other plants (I have to keep them from offing my japanese primroses every year). I have a bed with 8 peonies and I allow the verbena to form sweeps between them - and I've learned not to let all zillion of them go to seed.
I do have places where I pit the pushy ones against each other - Anemone x hybrida Honorine Jobert, saponaria Bouncing Bet and northern bayberries have been battling each other to a draw for the last three years. But I have to watch it. Soapwort plays dirty. Every few weeks I cut around it with a shovel.
Donna
Gosh - someone is sending verbena b. as a DG share. But I'm putting it in a pot. How do you get anemones to be perennial, Donna? We plant them but they never even come up, and the packages always say iffy re z. 6.
Carrie
Carrie,
Are you perhaps referring to anemone coronaria? I understand that comes in packages. That isn't hardy here. I read on a site that it's only semi-hardy, and keels over at about 28 degrees. But Japanese anemones, which is what I put in 9 years ago, thrives. It's not obnoxious - it has spread over 9 years from four plants to probably the equivalent of 12, but it's very easy to pull out.
Or do you mean the tubers, anemone blanda? They come back for me too.
The key to verbena b is to avoid allowing it to go to seed. Early on I deadheaded it and had no problem. It was only when I left plants for the birds that it went nuts. One hard winter I saw bluebirds jumping up and down on the plants to dislodge the dried seeds. If you pull out the plants (easy to yank out) or deadhead them it's fine. They don't travel by underground runners and damage other plants.
Donna (on my way out to scratch out my billion nicotiana alata seedlings).
Donna, I don't know which I'm talking about (nervous laugh) but they come in packages with beautiful pictures on them of red and purple flowers, the packages have corms or tubers or bulbs or something in them, Home Depot sells them in the fall with other fall-planting bulbs, and they've never once come up. Although I heard recently that whatever those things are, you're supposed to soak them first, which it doesn't mention on the pretty packages! Don't worry about me, and don't let me totally side-track this thread! I'm keeping my verbena b. in containers, so I'm not too worried about it getting away!
Carrie
Carrie: You misunderstand. The roots on the verbena bonar. are not a problem- very small and easy to remove. It's the airborne tiny seeds which go EVERYWHERE.
Karen
Hi, Carrie-- you d-mailed me about the verbena bonarienses, but I haven't sent it yet.
I love it in our garden but we have a kind of 'natural' look to our garden--planted mainly for the butterflies and birds--and Verbena bonarienses plays well with the daisies, liatris, bronze fennel, coneflowers, zinnias and milkweeds. And yes, it makes a lot of seedlings if you let it go to seed, but they are easy to yank. I like to prune it down a bit when it's about 10 inches high so that the plants are bushier, too.
I understand Verbena bonarienses is less easily controlled in the South. And it is interesting that WFF sells it for $20 a pop (and other places too) when it is so easily grown (easy for me at least).
If you want to pass on it, just let me know. It sounds like maybe it's not the verbena you were thinking of. (Maybe the purple one 'Homestead' would be more to your liking.) (-: t.
I am sorry I planted a share from my neighbor. At first I thought it was some kind of penstemon, and I asked her about it because I saw hummers going to it. So she gave me a little clump. I moved it last fall because it was too tall for where I had put it and now every day I go out and there is some popping up here and there. I figured out that it is actually Narrow leaf Obedient plant, and it is much worse than the regular type! OMG : (
Carrie,
Take Tabasco up on the offer of verbena Homestead Purple. GREAT plant! It's one of the few I buy every year from Bluestone, since I can't germinate it. I put it in pots every year and it's glorious. Same lovely color. Shorter. Nice mixer. Nice alone. And it won't spread. In my zone it doesn't survive the cold.
Tabasco - what a nice offer!
Donna
Tabasco,
I am up to the challenge! We have yucky soil - not much grows unless we plant it! I will probably kill it anyway (by mistake). Do you want to do an actual trade? Dmail me.
Poor Meredith - we all feel your pain!
Carrie
LOL well, Carrie, I don't want to force the VB on you! But I'll go ahead and send it, no trading required. If I go to the Post office and find out the postage is too much I'll ask you to chip in a bit.
Donna, if you would like some please send me a d-mail with your address...happy to oblige! I won't be sending until next week--after the holiday.
And it can't be that bad--it won the Royal Horticultural Society AGM (Award of Garden Merit)!
http://www.rhs.org.uk/WhatsOn/gardens/rosemoor/archive/rosemoorpom03aug.asp
And you know, it's easy to winter sow. At least that's how I did mine...
I wish I could find my photos of it in the garden but they are on my old computer...
I like it better and better - and thanks for reminding me about the holiday weekend! I had forgotten . . . . d'uh.
Oh, I liked the verbena bonar. too, until the reseeding got out of hand. That's the only reason I've decided to eliminate it, not at all because I didn't like it.
Tabasco: Were you referring to starting Homestead Purple from seed? I thought it was propagated vegatatively. That's another I really liked. I bought plants twice but neither made it through a winter.
Karen
Dear Tabasco,
Thank you! You have a D-mail. Is there someting I can send to you? I have lots of lilies - Orientals, Orienpets, Trumpets. I have nepeta Dawn to Dusk (pink and white) which is gorgeous, and assertive, but not aggressive. I have fragaria vesca reugen - woodland strawberry that has no runners and makes a lovely edging plant.
Let me know what kind of thing you would like.
Donna
Donna: Completely off-topic (sorry) but which of your lilies do you find perennialize the best?
No, k., not Homestead purple from seed. Sorry. Maybe it could be rooted from cuttings, though. Anyone try that? It's supposed to grow well here--but not invasive. At least at our house.
Hi Happy.
No problem. I've been growing lilies for nine years, so I have a good idea. The ones that I put in years ago and have had good fortune with are as follows:
Regale (species/trumpet): it not only perennializes, it increases (reasonably). Very easy to grow. Gorgeously scented. Great disease resistance, but I find it needs staking.
Anastasia (orienpet): the perfect lily, with strong stems, huge flowers that last, disease free, fabulous scent and not only perennializes, but multiply. I have never understood why it's so expensive. I started with three bulbs (5-6 years ago?) and have moved the excess twice. I must have 15-20. I paid $32 for 3. I've seen them priced at $40. Makes no sense (Brent and Becky's bulbs have then for a reasonable price.) Tolerates temps in the 90's.
The Vamp (asiatic): no scent but a non fading disease free red that blooms early in the season and multiplies.
Artistic/Brushstroke (asiatic): prolific increaser, no scent, but early blooming and disease free.
Silver Sunburst (trumpet): huge flowers, great scent, beautiful, disease free. Tolerates high heat (90's).
Emerald Angel (trumpet): same great qualities as Silver Sunburst.
Silk Road (orienpet): just like Anastasia above. Great.
Ariadne (asiatic): delicate looking but tough. Disease free.
Rosepoint Lace (asiatic); like Ariadne; they are related.
White Henryi (species trumpet); increases, but may need a bit of staking.
Sorbonne (oriental): when I had problems with another Oriental, the company sent me three of these as a replacement. You can put them in less than favorable places and neglect to water them and they come back year after year.
Crystal Blanca (oriental): related to Casa Blanca but has shorter stems and does not scorch in the heat as Casa Blanca does.
Hope this helps. I must have tried a dozen other lilies that did not work, and it's great to be able to save someone else the aggravation and expense involved in failures. If you would like more info and some pictures please Dmail me.
Donna
Donna, that's fabulous information.
I'd like to add one more that I don't remember whether I mentioned that I'm sorry I planted - ordinary Achillea, the weedy, aggressive kind of yarrow. I may have said this already. And I don't know how much is due to its aggressive spreading or to DH's sneaky "helpfulness". But all my columbines are overgrown with yarrow now! :-(
Carrie