Is there help with droopy yarrow & lobelia?

Is there a solution to drooping lobelia and yarrow besides staking? I took a chance and sprinkled Espoma epson salt around the roots of the drooping plants and watered it in hoping the potassium would help.

Any other suggestions?

The yarrow is not planted in rich soil, the lobelia is.

Thanks,
Maureen

Hi Maureen. I don't have time to stake many plants in my gardens and don't really care for the look either. A lot of the time, I just let things flop and the neighbours sort of hold them up a bit. Some Yarrow flops more than others, especially if it's not in full sun. Thinning it in spring so there aren't so many stems would help a bit. I think some of the seed grown mixes are the worst. If you like the colour and want to keep that one in particular, small shrubby branches can be placed in with them for support. If you like a tidier look, you could use peony rings or those rings with the grid that the plant grows through. Sometimes a tomato cage with the bottom ring cut off works for me. You don't say what kind of lobelia you are growing, but maybe the same tricks for it.

I have lobelia cardinalias (spelling?) and it is about 3 feet tall or so. It bends over starting at the top and I wonder if I am not watering it enough.

You ideals sound like good alternatives to a million green sticks popping up all over though :)

Thanks,

Maureen

I use those grow-through supports with the grids for my shasta daisies. If you put them in place fairly early, the foliage hides them pretty well.

I've also used small sticks to prop up my echinaceas. It's a bit more natural looking, and I've got a never-ending supply of twigs, sticks, and small fallen branches in my backyard. It worked fine, although I wasn't nuts about it since the echinacea are not full enough to hide them.

Lobelia cardinalis likes a lot of water. Just love the plant. For me it's not long lived, but not difficult from seed. I think you mean the lobelia is drooping, not really flopping over. As you did say, if I would remember what I read. Probably needs a good deep drink.

winging, I'm just waiting for one of those terrible prairie winds to blow through here, and my standing straight as soldiers echinaceas will be a mess. Along with a few others like the shastas and delphiniums. I just can't do without these tall plants though.

This message was edited Jul 8, 2006 6:24 PM

echoes--me neither, although I am about to give up on delphiniums. I just never get enough of them to come back, just one or two. Last year I had to stake my stargazier and casa blanca lilies, but so far this year they seem okay. Here in Cincy, it's more the rain that can make flowers need staking. They get heavier with the water drops and start to bend and sway.

Well I jut cut my yarrow back after it rained for a week and the hollyhocksToo! .
They are all growing back. It looks much nicer.

I also cut my Yarrow - when they were half grown, about April, I think - and they were beautifully upright and bushy when they bloomed, but now that they are mostly finished they have flopped over. I am going to cut them back again, and suspect there will be a nice follow up display. I know that the amount of water doesn't matter - I have seen drooping and leggy plants in both dry and wet places. But the worst was in poor soil with little water.

Peter

Here is what worked for me:

when cleaning up flower beds in fall wrap bottom 3" of yarrow plant into a "ponytail" using kitchen string. Cut off everything above the "ponytail".

In spring, just as leaves appear at base of rosette, remove kitchen string. My "Parker Gold" yarrow responded beautifully to this odd treatment. 4' high and no flopping. I also deadhead them biweekly.

Cheapo solution (though I'm going to try greenjay's!) is putting chicken wire down over the planting in early spring. As the yarrow (or peonies, etc.) grow up and through the wire, the wire raises up a bit. Foliage hides it. The plants still move beautifully in the breeze, but the hidden wire keeps them from dragging on the ground.

Zeppy, that is amazing. so the plants are strong neough to lift the wire! Wow.

Greenjay - I may try your trick, but I don't understand why it works. There would not - I guess - be any growth on the previous year's stems. What makes the next year's growth out of the ground different than if you had just cut off the foliage after frost?

Peter

This message was edited Jul 26, 2006 9:01 PM

I have no idea why it worked. Nearest I can say, from looking at the rosette as it was puting out new growth, is that tying the stems may be "training" or aligning the roots that send out adventitious growth in the spring. I should also add that everything in that bed was fertilized with bloodmeal in february, though I doubt that would have an effect on the upright stems.

Well I am going to try it. It is just plain cute - tying each one lin a little bundle for winter.

About dead-heading, do you cut the stems pretty far back when you do this? I assume they will stay more upright and bushy that way.

Peter

Deadheading yarrow --

For the Parker's gold, I cut the stem all the way back to the rosette, since it does not seem to make more flowers from the same stem. I deadhead the white ones as soon as they start to fade, halfway down the stem. They don't have the nice "ferny" foliage that I get with Fire King or other red - yellow varieties.

Albanian or Greek yarrow, I remove the flower sikes all the way to the rosette, or take the stem as a cutting for propagation.

My pinkish white is one of those ferny types. I cut them about half way, last week. Interesting that you cut the others to the ground. I haven't spent enough time with the Cornation Gold to see if they bloomed off the stem, but I doubt it. So to the ground they go! I have a couple of the yarrows with glossy green foliage, which I put in this year. I imagine that they are in the Albanian or Greek category? The flower stems obviously need to go!

Albanian yarrow is < 5" tall, and the flowers are 1/4", white with a light yellow center. the foliage is "ferny", but slightly fragrant. We use them in the rock garden here.