I've kind of been sensing this for a while - but now I have definite proof. The house up the hill on the corner has Sweet Autumn clematis, and so do we. Ours bloomed first - for like 72 hours. Theirs seemed to bloom for a week or two. All my lovely perennials are doing well, they just don't bloom for long. Other people's gardens seem to bloom for much longer. Is everyone in my town using more MiracleGro than we? Exactly what is happening? Do we not deadhead enough? I never see anyone else out gardening - maybe they deadhead secretly with car headlights? Advice, please. I trust you guys. We try to plant into well ammended soil, and water with some bloombooster stuff, but other than that, we don't compost, or at least we put stuff into 'the compost pile' but I'm not sure anything has ever come back out of there... What should we be doing that we're not?
xxxxx, Carrie (a urban/suburban gardener)
my flowers bloom for such a short period! why???
Are your plants as old and well-established as theirs? Younger plants sometimes won't bloom as nicely as older ones.
one word..deadheading..I constantly prowl the garden lopping off any spent blooms, the result is that most of my perennials bloom most of the summer
LeeAnne
OK, thank you both! Next summer everyone will be a year older, although most of mine are already 2 - 3 years, the ones I'm jealous of are maybe older. the houses are certainly older and fancier. We definately could keep deadheading more - I guess after some of them start to peak, we may figure they're done, whereas if we kept deadheading or maybe even cut them back, we could get a second flush of bloom. I just noticed how the (new) balloonflowers were so healthy and green for long after they stopped blooming! I'm still not sure about the Sweet Autumn clematis? I don't think I can deadhead that - or the coreopsis.
xxxxx, Carrie
Coreopsis you can definitely deadhead--I don't grow clematis so can't tell you about those. I think the age factor could definitely be contributing here if most of your stuff is just 2-3 yrs old...many perennials don't come into their full glory for a couple of years, and also as plants get bigger they will tend to have more blooms since there are more stems/branches on a bigger plant, and since not every flower on the plant is going to bloom on exactly the same day, you will also likely get the effect of a longer bloom period. Deadheading will definitely help you too.
Carrie,
On getting Clematis to bloom more, please re-post your question in the Clematis Forum, you'll get more feed back.
F.Y.I. In my zone 7a garden, Sweet Autumn Clematis is a THUG and I'm using Roundup to get rid of it! Be careful what you ask for.
Carrie,
I did find this thread http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/643087/ on Sweet Autumn Clematis. If you put 'Sweet Autumn Clematis' in the search box on the Clematis Forum, you'll get a lot of hits. Also, be sure to read ALL the comments about it in Plant Files too.
Carrie,
My coreopsis bloomed constantly all summer !! Was still blooming when it got froze. I go around the garden every morning and get almost a bushel of deadheads...cone flowers, coreopsis,even the monarda willl keep blooming if deadheaded, everything.
LeeAnne
If you don't want to deadhead coreopsis, you can usually shear it back by half every 2 mos, and it will bound back stronger every time.
TOO much fertilizer would also be a problem. Too much nitrogen will produce lots of leaves and fewer flowers. Coreopsis I wouldn't bother to fertilize at all during the growing season , spring and fall only.
http://davesgarden.com/gbw/c/38/
Carrie-- you may want to get the "Well tended perennial garden" book from the library. Lots of good hints on how to cut back, prune, deadhead, perennials for better and longer bloom.
Also, maybe your garden needs more water?
Greenjay, there's a plan, shear the coreopsis. I'm not worried about stuff becoming too invasive in my zone, Shirley, it's just too darn cold. LeeAnne, NEXT year we will be deadheading fools! Certainly not too MUCH fertilizer; the odds are better on too little fertilizer and/or too little rain.
I basically leave the watering of established perennials to the sky, unless it doesn't rain for an unusually long time. We have a high water table in Milton (everyone has French drains or pumps in their basements) and this year we were all building arks and collecting animal pairs by May, it was a record-breakingly wet spring / early summer. A lot of seeds washed away along with a lot of topsoil! I tend to think that water is so precious (and expensive) that I prefer if my perennials learn to dig deep and find their own water. But fertilizer I think they need and they can't make by themselves. What do you guys recommend? Alfalfa tea? [I got some alfalfa but I never made the tea.] Getting compost OUT of the compost pile? [I'll speak to the DH.]
Thank you all so much already!
xxxxx, Carrie
hey Carrie,
I leave the watering to Mother Nature as well, unless it does not rain for a couple weeks, we have a high water table here as well, the lawn never goes dry. As for fertilizing, I just mulch from the compost twice a year...except for the roses and perennial Hibiscus..i give them a shot of time release something or other once in the spring. Good luck next year...you will notice a difference with the deadheading.
LeeAnne
Carrie, it's not that cold... I'm not worried about stuff becoming too invasive in my zone, Shirley, it's just too darn cold"
You'd be surprised what continues to live, even through your cold. :-)
Zone 6 is not really all that cold--I used to live in zone 6 and believe me there were plenty of invasive plants! I'm sure even if you go a few zones colder you'll still find some!
Are they getting enough sun? I find that alot of my perennials don't seem to bloom as well as the same perennials in other people's gardens who have more sun. Try putting down some Flower Tone in March. Tabasco's suggestion about getting The Well Tended Perennial Garden is a good one...it will answer most of your questions.
Crabgrass and dandelions are what we worry about, and maybe soon we'll start to be offended by clover, so far it has seemed charming.
If it's the sun (or lack of), we'll just have to stop whining, and work on getting the town to prune the maple on the sidewalk. (Technically, it's THEIR tree, so we can't do more than discretely hack at the limbs that almost fall off.)
What is Flower Tone? Or should I just buy the book?
xxx, Carrie
Ispoma flower tone http://www.espoma.com/content.aspx?type=p&intCategoryID=4&id=21