Beginner Gardening: What happened to my delphinium???, 0 by Marshmellow

Marshmellow wrote:
You must live in an area without wind or rain 2zeus :) Those would be flat on the ground once a 10 mph breeze or heavy rain came, they have tiny hollow stems I'm just amazed they're still standing!!! They do look beautiful... you really did a great job. My Pacific Giants look like that, but they never failed to have their hollow stems snap at a hint of a breeze or a thunderstorm as they're in a place on occasion the wind blows, or hard thunderstorm comes. Yours at least is protected in the corner between two fences, good job. My fertilizer is compost + dehydrated manure + alphala that's probably like 1-1-1 and must be decomposed by bacteria before the nutrients are available to the plants (which takes 4 weeks before it will start to feed the delphs)... I don't think it's possible to overfertilze with that, even 2".

To show the difference between the two, I went out this afternoon and took some shots of my Pacific Giants and Milleniums (the ones planted at the same time) as they are today. Both were planted in the same soil, same time, same amendments, same procedures, same water, same sunlight, same care for the past 2 years. They broke through at the same time this year, one of the Pacific Giant didn't come back (Arrggg!!!!)

As you can see from the picture, (Pacifig Giants on Left, Milleniums on right) they are both the same height, but the Milleniums have 4x or more vigor, or 4x bigger and healtheir than the Pacific Giants. It's tough to imagine we're comparing 2 Milleniums to 2 Pacific Giants the Milleniums look like a bush! I also took a picture of their stems with a nickel leaning against them so you can see the size difference. The Milleniums stems are wide as a Nickel, the PG's stems are 1/2 the size or less. This will hold up through their lives, even when the flowers occur. The Milleniums have full flowers you can't see the stem behind, the PG's grow about 1' taller but the flowers are less attractive and more spaced apart. When people come to my yard, they go right to the Milleniums. I will keep a photo journal between the two, this is probably the last year I'll have PG's, I just can't believe I lost a Delph (Pacific Giant) I treat them all so well. The major problem with PG's is they look inferior being right in with the Milleniums... it's not something I recommend people mix & match. If you have PG's, stick with them... or I recommend simply starting off with Milleniums and sticking with them.

Your Pacific Giants and garden looks absolutely gorgeous, I will keep photo journals of mine so people can see the difference.

This message was edited May 1, 2008 3:34 PM