I live in East Texas and have several large and small flower beds...different soil types, etc. I planted a couple of BBD in each bed. At first they all got just covered in buds and blooms and were beautiful. Now they're all yellowing and dying. I've cut them way back and they'll recover for a bit but never rebloom and then start dying again. The last few months I've gone from watering a few times a week to every other day and now of course each day so they're getting plenty of water but not too much. The beds are mulched too. I can't figure out what's wrong. Any ideas??
Blue Butterfly Delphinium help!!
IHope I'm not speaking out of step here, as I am certainly no delphinium expert. Have you ever grown delphiniums before? I'm not sure what your zone is, but I know that delphiniums don't like the heat much. For that reason, we grow them only as cool season annuals down here (about 30 miles north of Houston), planting them in late Fall, early Winter. They've been finished here for a very long time.
Maggiemoo, you're right, they don't like the heat! The Blue Butterfly is supposed to be more heat tolerant, but never makes it long into the summer for me.
You both are lifesavers...I didn't kill my plants, YAY!! I've never grown them before. This is my first year to plant anything and I got ambitious and have around 800sf of flower beds. I have a wide variety that included the delphiniums. I'm in 8a (same as Dallas) but thought they were supposed to be a bit heartier. I'll plant them the same seasons as my pansies -fall and early spring. Other than these, I've only lost one lavendar lant and that's it. My butterfly gaura has stopped blooming but the foliage is still really wispy. I'm going to cut it back and see if I can encourage new blooms. Thanks again for the help!!