Specialty Gardening: Garden Shots 2- Summer's here, keep those pics coming!, 1 by Meredith79

Meredith79 wrote:
Gemini here is my two cents worth on lupines.. like figaro the first time I planted them they were potted plants, I lost one but the other bloomed and went to seed. They were supposed to be the wild blue type - Lupinus perennis. The next year I started lots more of the Wild Blue ones but also tried some Morello Cherry from seed and lost everyone of the twelve seedlings - some due to cut worms. The others just seemed to die out gradually. They were in a different area of the yard that had never had lupines. I tried the Morello Cherry and ones called My Castle again this year in my new bed - there was at least 6" of what the local landscape place calls super soil. It is basically good loam with a lot of compost mixed in. I have had better results so far, but won't know for sure how much until next year. The wild Blue type have done extremely well this year and the ones that self seeded seemed to do much better than the ones I grew from seed myself. Isn't that always the way though? lol So my two cents is that they seem to do better once lupines have been growing in that spot. I have read something along those lines. Where they are in the pea family, some seed companies recommend using an inocculent with them when direct seeding. If you have no luck, this would be an option. Also about them loving peat moss.. I'm sure that's true if you don't have an acidic soil. My soil is naturally acidic and we actually have to lime the grass areas so no peat moss needed for me. : ) After liming it still was 6.7 and we were recommended to add more. (Only to the grass areas though, I like wildflowers that grow in acidic soils.) Here is a picture of the one white one that popped up out of the blues. They bloomed over a very long period for me. I actually still had a few flowers on some up until about a week or so ago. As you can see I will have a lot of seeds if you want some when they are ready, I'd be glad to send you some. : )
Want to add that the reason I picked the wild blue ones is they are supposed to grow in dry and poor soil, so they are a lot different than the pickier Russel or hybrid types. So may be a better choice if you don't have luck with the hybrid and russel types. They are a native wildflower here in nh. Here is a link to a gorgeous shot of the Annual Lupine festival with the white mountains in the background. /photos/11839524@N07/3624287233/