I'm looking for pretty perennials that will compliment Echinacea "Hope" ( a very pale pink with a brown center) and Echinacea Fatal Attraction (a very bright magenta w/ near black stems). Any ideas? Thanks!
Companions for the new echinacreas
They are very pretty. Are your Echinaceas blooming now? Mine bloom later--
Some ideas to look into: buddleia, purple or white liatris spicata, purple or other late daylilies, various salvias, and nepetas, ornamental grasses, and shasta daisies 'Becky'. My Eremurus are blooming now and would be pretty with your Echinacea choices, too, if the bloom times coincide.
For annuals that reseed: Cleome in the rose, pink, purple or white might be nice nearby.
Oooo good ideas tabasco! The daisies sound wonderful. I was going to suggest salvias, ( one of my favorite plants ).
Great minds think alike.
I use daylily.
They look pretty good all by themselves is you have a big enough clump.
You might want to consider an annual, from seed as a temporary companion.
dale....you never cease to amaze me with all of your beautiful pictures! I have been a huge fan for some time now! *grin*. I would have never in a million years thought of coneflower and daylilies together. That pic is absolutely OVER THE TOP! How pretty. you have given me inspiration this morning. ( Or copycat mode) . thanks dale_a_gardener.
I like the echinacea and caladiums. I wouldn't have put them together since I thought caladiums need part sun, while echinacea likes full sun.
Thank you all for so many great ideas! Some of them I wouldn't have even thought of. My previously shady "hostaland" had to be relocated after two diseased trees came down. I'm now a rookie at sun gardening and half the fun is playing with vibrant colors.
If you think of any other great echinacea companions, please continue to post. Thanks!
Hello, I'm a newbie here and new at the whole gardening thing. I have planted some echinacea "primadonna deep rose" with "becky", liatris, and salvia "may night", so it sounds like I'm on the right track. I was wondering if anyone could recommend some early-season bulbs or something else to plant under the coneflowers to give that space some color earlier in the spring when the coneflowers come down? Maybe daffodils or tulips or irises? or is this even a good idea? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!
Daffs are always good, come back year after year usually and the deer, rabbits, moles and voles aren't partial to them...you can pair them with blue muscari (which return, too) for edging.
Check out Brent & Becky's or VanEngelen's Bulb catalog for ideas... (look on Garden Watchdog for their websites.)
Other bulb planting ideas: http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/plants/handbooks/springbulbs/5.html
I think the foliage daffs leave behind after their bloom is alot prettier than some other bulbs. My opinion. tabasco, you come up with some good ones.
thanks, crash, I love to pair up plants--of course in theory they always sound great, in reality it's a different matter! I spent the morning so far moving plants around correcting my mistakes!
Are you coming to the RU?
Baby, one more thing, since crash mentioned the daff foliage--to get the daffs to return yearly, you have to leave the foliage in the garden for six weeks after bloom. This can be a bit of an ugly sight and many gardeners plant daylilies (hemerocallis) with their daff bulbs to camoflage the left-over daff greens (the two have similar foliage).
A daylily or two would work well with your perennials and you might be able to score some from the trading forum or go to the Daylily Forum--often they are giving away extra plants to newbies.
Have fun. t.
Yeah, I talked Jeremy into drivivg down, should be Jeremy, myself and Hannah, my youngest daughter. I'm looking forward to meeting you!
I really don't mind the foliage of daffodils so much, as long as it's all in one place. last year I had daffodils just kind of scattered around in my garden, and it really did look messy. I guess my question is, if I plant daffodils (or tulips!) underneath my coneflowers and leave then standing for 6 weeks or so after they bloom, will they block the sun from the coneflowers too much while they're getting started? I'm hoping that by the time the bulbs are ready to come down, the coneflowers will be well on their way. I've never tried echinacea before, so I don't really know how it behaves. I'm hoping to do the same kind of thing with my coreopsis "sweet dreams." I love them to death, but they are just now starting to fill up that vast hole in my garden! Thanks for your help!
mmm...I don't know about the exact timing of those pairings in your garden. I grow the same plants as you want to, but, the growth rate in different gardens depends on the weather and garden position. And what your spacing is.
You could plant very early daffs (read the fine print in John Scheepers' or B & B catalogs for that info or google), let the foliage die for six weeks, whack it off and I think your Coneflowers will be maybe 6 or 8 inches tall. At least that's where mine are now that I planted last fall and I am cutting down my early daffs foliage this weekend.
Right now, where I have my daff foliage and daylilies coming up together, I can hardly tell the difference between the two (pretty good camoflage plan).
Can't really know until you try, I guess.
My coneflower was really coming along well, even before the tulips were done. I kinda like the looks of the daff foliage, mine were planted in bunches. I think the coneflower, daff mix would work fine.
I like the Echinacea with Russian Sage, Balloon Flower, yarrow and lilies. This photo does not show the lilies - screaming orange.
I, too, plant the daffodils in big groups and the further back in the border, the better, so the declining foliage isn't quite as bad.
O, pirl, that is lovely!
Thank you.
Here's just a few of the screamers, which I've come to love. That bed also has both pink (self-seeded) and white digitalis with more new ones (Pam's Choice) to be added.
Oh, Pirl, those pictures are amazing! I especially love the first one with the Russian sage and yarrow. I think I've found a magical combo to try.
I can't wait to hit the nursery.
Signed,
Copycat :)
Go right ahead and copy all you want. Squeeze in all you can to thwart the weeds.
Pirl,
Your plants look great together, especially the russian sage. My question to you is how closely are they planted together? I have a new bed, and I put in more plants than I was originally intending because more of them grew from seed than I anticipated. I have been concerned that there is too much, yet yours looks fuller, but still not crowded. Perhaps I should reconsider how many I should put in my bed.
Go for it. The more room you leave the more weeds will find a new home. How close? I'd have to go out to measure and I'll leave out the yardstick and take a photo in the morning but they're very close - likethisclose.
Went back through this thread looking for good combinations for my pink yarrow and coneflower duo and now see the russian sage and that will be divine in my mailbox garden! Have cleome in there too. I'm excited!
Thanks again for the good tips!
I just purchased echie Mars from Gemini Garden owned by our Badseed. I plan to plant them by my orange roses. Mars have an orange cone/center. Should make for a nice color echo, huh, Tabasco?
I have pink yarrow sort of by itself. The only thing I can think of to make mine interesting is to plant a white yarrow, and a cerise yarrow right w/ the pink.
This message was edited May 29, 2007 2:42 PM
Ha, ha, Voss, on the color echo. That one will have some electricity!
Yarrow is not a special favorite of mine so I have trouble with making combos with it. However, today I saw a wonderful butterfly nosing around in mine so now I like it better.
if you have a large expanse I am sure the 3 yarrows together would look lovely. I have seen pics of hillsides with the multicolored mixed yarrows on them and it was beautiful. In the fashion of Piers Ohlms (or whatever his name is--I can't remember...)
I am learning to like coneflowers after reading this thread and MollyMc's 'Cone Crazy' thread. I bought a few and am trading for some at the RU Saturday...
The more yarrows of different colors, all planted together, make a stunning and eye catching combination. Try it from seed sometime in a plot of about 4 x 4 and you'll see how nice it is.
Tobasco, I went shopping for russian sage Little Spire today after seeing Pirl's pictures yesterday. You might want to consider catmint as well. Catmint will give you the same type of look. The flowers are similar as are the stems. I believe it is nepata low growing that I was considering 18 - 24".
I actually decided not to get either because the only plants in stock were too large for the spaces that I had available. Instead, I am going to throw in some blue oat grass. The grass will still give me the airy look that I want, as well as the color, and I can get a smaller size that will fit. There is also the added benefit of virtually no maintainance.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/90852/
These are picture of the catmint from the plantfiles.
pennefeather - in response to your "how close" question I did take a photo.
They're all within three feet and that includes from the center of the Russian Sage, the Echinacea, and the lilies. There are hundreds of digitalis babies as well - they can fight it out and whichever survives is fine with me.
Thank you, penne,
I like nepeta and have a couple of them already for the butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. Don't remember which ones, now, though.
Just last week I purchased one: my favorite website 'Everything French Gardening ' http://www.frenchgardening.com/
recommended nepeta 'Souvenir d'Andre Chaudron'. I know not if it will grow in the Ohio climate, but once in a while a go on a french daydream and buy plants she recommends. LOL I think I will move that one over to the mailbox with the coneflowers, etc.
Thank you for reminding me.
Pirl, you're my hero!! Does this mean I can have my big clump of daffodils (or tulips, I found some on Brent & Becky's site that have variegated pretty foliage!) AND stick some Russian sage or other stuff in with my coneflowers? Right now I have five Primadonna deep Rose (4" pots) in a space that's roughly 6 feet by 2.5 feet. The label says to plant them 18" apart. They're spaced a little closer than that, but they look so lonely!!
I planted a gaura "Snow Fountain" in there too last week, can't wait till they get started!!!
One of my borders has quite a mix of coneflowers and daylilys. I really like the combination.
early_bloomer
Looks like a really lovely, low maintenace flower bed, EarlyBloomer.
Since we are discussing plant partners and inter-planting, I wanted to add this article from 'French Gardening'. http://www.frenchgardening.com/aujardin.html
It explains well the theory behind pairing plants. I often forget that the root systems are so critical and need to be considered--I get carried away with color and form first, which probably isn't the best thing to do, and may be where I go wrong sometimes....
Once again, tabasco, we do the same things. I still stick to color and if a plant wimps out on me it's just too bad. I'll find a replacement from somewhere else in the garden. I just hate paying for replacements since they'd have to be older, more expensive ones, to substitute.
babygardener - That photo only showed the middle row. There are huge lilies in back of that area and the fence is covered with clematis (4 of them) and more plants are at the front. There's also a 'Splish Splash' geranium in there but it's done blooming by the time the others are in full bloom.
Now to go to tabasco's link and enjoy my coffee.
I'd need the whole coffee pot right here, tabasco!
It's so true about the plants with the deep tap roots. Some don't mind being moved, like balloon flower, while lupine will just die on me if I try it. For 15 years I've heard you can't move an established baptisia. Ours grew too wide and I took out a few chunks and they're all growing fine.
The part of the article about having blooms in all sections at all times must be something from another world because I have never seen it except for professional gardens where they rely on teams of people planting to keep replacing spent annuals and I do find that boring (the huge beds of one flower after the other).
Pirl, what's the approximate area of that bed? Do you have a picture of the whole thing? Mine is only about 5 feet deep at its widest point. Here's what I have so far, do I have much room for other stuff once the echinacea and all the other plants in there get big?
That's much more room than the section of the garden in the photo. I do have other photos of the whole garden but it's late and I'm exhausted. Please post after this post so it will be on my screen in the morning to remind me to show you the photo. Thanks.
The whole idea is to plant little plants and they'll all mesh together leaving little room for weeds.