Specialty Gardening: Join Us! Seed Swap Seed Starting & Conversation #10, 1 by flowerhead410

flowerhead410 wrote:
Suzy-That book sounds GREAT! I think you recommended it on the co-op?? I put it on my Amazon wishlist for when the money starts rolling in. We don't have any problems with floppy monardas here, maybe the longer season there makes them floppy? Do you like how I am talking in questions? I was visiting Carol's thread and posted a pic of the bed I was able to work on today, so if this repeats for some of you ...sorry, but I'm cuttin' and pastin' lol! My daffs are JUST peaking their tips up(as in-still lots of snow!) , but I have more ground showing, so I was able to do a little bit of gardening on some beds close to the house on the south side. Patchwork clean-up! The bed in this pic is the one I was able to do some work on-as you can see it has become a little overgrown. At the end of last season I took out half of the cutleaf rudbeckia (tall yellow flower) It just spreads and spreads.....and I put in some plume poppy(which is also a spreader, but as with any spreader, I'm promising myself to stay ahead of it!lol!)The bed has a has been taken over by oregano, which I started pulling out end of last season and I pulled some of the beastie runners today! Then there are the siberian iris and the daylilies! ugh!-Robin-are we talkin' shoemaker's children or what- this bed is UNTENDED!
Suzy-caryopteris roots are winter hardy to Zone 5, but top growth is only reliably hardy to Zone 7, so they do better being cut WAY back-they flower on new wood and they will be bushier even if you don't have a lot of dieback. Treat it like a woody perennial.
Our buddleia is the same-root hardy, but is cut back like a perennial because the top is not hardy.
I can't keep up here with all the seeds to tend to! LOL!