Hi all--here's my question: I just planted astilbe yesterday in front of a tree that I thought would shade it. WRONG--I came home from work and the poor thing was all droopy, like water-starved hydrangeas get. I promptly moved it to a shadier location. Have I killed it or will it bounce back? Thanks for answering!
astilbe
My experience with astilbe is that when it dries up (doesn't seem to take much for that to happen!), it's gone for that year but then it comes back next season. That's been the story with all mine, anyway. I try to resucitate with lots of water, but I haven't been super successful at getting one to perk up that same season.
This message was edited May 16, 2008 4:37 PM
Keep it moist, it should be o.k. in the shadier spot.
If you mix some water crystals in the planting hole with your astilbe, it helps them a lot. There are often coops here on DG for the watersorb crystals: much cheaper than at stores!
Ruth
I "killed" one last year when I planted it under a tree which we cut down. Once it got the sun, it dried up and died. I took he crispy plant and transplanted it to part sun/shade. It came up fine this year. It's pink and I just planted a red one next to it.
I moved a bunch of shade plants last year as I planted some in very dry soil. All of the plants I moved to different areas came up this year. Some of them came up late compared to the same plants in different areas. I was pleasantly suprised!
Yep...that's how I would describe my Astilbes right now....CRISPY!!!
Mine never make it through the summer without "dying" from lack of water....they always come back the following spring..
This is only my second year in this house. I planted one last year and it's doubled in size, so I bought two more. They havn't bloomed yet, but they have buds. They are in deep shade, I water daily, against the wishes of my husband lol My water bill is tripled in summer:( He's accusing me of trying to drain Lake Erie. I see you posted this several weeks ago, how is the astilbe doing now that it has been moved???
This is my first attempt at Astilbe. One has already flowered, so do I leave it or do I snip the dead flower off?
Thanks,
Rose
I've seen it written that the dead flowers add interest, but I feel like they just look like dead flowers, so I like to cut them off. That probably varies by cultivar...some "dead" ones probably look better than others. I think you can do whatever strikes your fancy.
I added several new astilble this year and last and I can't wait to see the blooms!
So, if I do cut off the dead it won't flower again this season? May as well leave it alone then!
Thanks!
No, I'm pretty sure they won't rebloom for you if you cut them off.
I would like to know about dividing them, though....is it something you have to do, and when/how often should you do it?
This is the first time any of my astilbe are blooming. I put some of them in in summer '06 and some in last summer. They are looking GREAT now though. I have a spot with hosta Liberty surrounded by 3 astilbe and they all grew as if they were wanting to be showstoppers. I have to get a picture.
Astilbe should be divided every few years to keep them flowering at their best. If not divided they could eventually stop blooming altogether. Deadheading will not produce any more blooms this year. I like to leave the plumes on until the following spring for fall and winter interest, but I do agree that some age nicer than others. Purple and red tend to look nice after flowers fade. Pink, white and peach sometimes just look brown and dead.
I moved into this house four years ago and brought some plants from my old house. One in particular is a HUGE ligularia and I don't even know the variety, but is four feet wide and four feet tall. I just loved it and couldn't divide it because it was too huge so I took the whole thing. Mostly I divided hostas and some grasses and some of my favorite plants that I had an emotional attachment to, some were gifts. I dug up a poor crispy astilbe that I constantly had to hand water because I knew the new owners would never baby it and I had pampered it for five years to keep it barely alive. Well, it has been in the ground here for three years now and it is huge. I can't believe how big it is. I didn't know they got this big. It is full of blooms, but I didn't know that they get too big to bloom. The idea of dividing this thing doesn't sound like fun. I am afraid it will never grow to this size again so I'll wait for it to stop blooming. I've added four new ones to the area around this one and they are doing okay, nothing like this one. I realize that this one in particular was five years old but never had enough water so it probably just took off when in the right spot. Last year I had two of them in two much sun, they dried up completely and I planted them in my full shade rehab center. I love this spot. Everything recovers there. Any comments on Goatsbeard? I want to try a couple of them in my neighbor's garden. I loved them in my last yard, but I remember they were huge. I don't have the room here. My yard is stuffed to the gills. I can't fit anything of any real size in my shade gardens. But I'm helping friends and they need some big shade plants for these woodland settings that are deer resistant.
Crazy4plants
My goatsbeards do well and the deer don't seem to bother them much.
Maybe it's because they're too busy feasting on all the other delicacies in my yard.
At least it seems to me that goatsbeard isn't their first dining choice.
Songs of Joy,
How big should it get before you devide it? My white one is blooming now, the crimson and pink just still have buds (they're new and not so big). My white one I planted last year and it's a monster.
Some cultivars of astilbe are just larger than others. If your 1 year old plant is a monster, it is probably just a large astilbe. I'd give it a couple years. I actually don't divide mine until I notice that they've started to flower less than they used to because I can't seem to get organized enough to know how many years ago I divided something last. Plus, I have over 50 astilbe plants so I'd never be able to keep track.
Crazy4plants - if I'm remembering correctly, you have the wonderful garden with mountain views and stunning water feature, correct? If so, I was just thinking about your garden yesterday and thought that I should go look up your pictures again if I can find them! Glad your astible pulled through. It is much easier to divide astilbe in the spring when the shoots first start to poke up or in the fall when you don't mind trimming back the foliage.
Songds, I love your name. Yes, I do have a mountain and golf course view here. And my astilbe landed by a sprinkler head and is making up for its previous life of drought existance. It was so pathetic when I dug it up, I couldn't bare to leave it there. It would surely have died. I brought it here with no idea where it would land and and here it is in heaven for its needs. It is really happy, but it gets all the water because of its location. In fact, I find every plant close to the sprinkler heads does really well.
I bought this new plant today, Tovara Painter's Palette, Perscicaria filformis and am a bit worried it might reseed. Any experience with this? I have a very shaded area with one void spot that I'd like a little pop and thought this would be nice, but read it might reseed itself.
I can send the link to last year pics, but I've taken new ones. I just have to download them and I haven't done it yet, but the old ones are still there. Everything is growing, including the weeds. I wish I could get a handle on them, but the pre-emergent isn't working. I am a garden fanatic. Just love it. Love gardening, love plants and creating places for them to grow. It exciting and fulfilling and sometimes disappointing when it doesn't go well. But when it works, it is like so wonderful.
Crazy
Crazy, I would love to see this year's photo's when you have them ready! You gave me a wealth of great advice last year and inspired me with your photos. I have put a lot of your advice into my garden efforts and I'm beginning to see it come together the way I want it to. It still has lots of growing up to do, but I can see where it's going and I can't wait. I too LOVE gardening. I can't seem to get enough. I work full-time, come home and stay outside until I can't see anything anymore. Every moment I have is in my garden and I wouldn't have it any other way. I do look forward to the day though when I can just putter. I still have two sides of my yard that are untouched. I will try to get to them next year, but it will likely take two years. After that, I can just move things to my heart's contentment, pull weeds, stroll and deadhead. No more heavy lifting, major makeovers, etc. I look forward to that day.
haha, you sound like me! First thing I want to do when I come home from work is garden! And then I'm out until it's too dark to see!
Dear Songs, I'm glad to have inspired you. Gardening is pure joy for me. I don't mind pulling weeds. It looks so clean when I'm done. I just have to stay on top of it. And when something isn't doing well, I don't agonize over it. I just dig it up and move it. I finally learned not to fight placing plants. Just move them to a place where they will be happier and it has worked well for me. Right now I have this hosta that is flooding out my sprinkler so my husband has to put a riser on it. I'll enclose a couple of photos I took the other day of my shady area. I have a couple of favorite plants so I took some closeups of them.
Crazy
My Jack Frost brunnera, bowles golden grass, yellow and red heuchera and bleeding heart. Love these shade plants
here is my rock walkway with a variety, but I am especially pleased with combining the grassed with ground covers. On the right side is the first photo with the red jap maple and on the left side is all the grasses with groundcovers and other plants. The yellow and silver grass really pop.
This is my monster bowles golden sedge grass. Love it.
Here is a close up of my Jack Frost. This is deer resistant. The leaves are supprisingly fuzzy and the deer don't like them. They are so pretty in spring with little blue flowers. I wish I had more places in shade and I'd get more of them.
Crazy
Crazy-your yard/gardens are beautiful!
Crazy - you got me going with some serious zone envy now! : )
Thanks so much. I love San Diego and So. Calif on the coast. We stay in Dana Point in the winter months and love it. That is the price we pay here for our zone. We have white winters and my favorite plants are dormant for months and covered in snow. I love going down there and enjoying the ocean. I grew up there and didn't appreciate plants or what I had until I moved away. I remember it always looked the same. Now when I visit in the winter I am amazed that impatients are blooming in January. It blows me away. Every area has its beauty. I'm in Pasadena next week to see my daughter. The Huntington Library has the most incredible succilent gardens I've ever seen and I'm not into succilents. Take a look at this photo at the Huntington when we visited Pasadena last time we were there. Isn't this amazing? Off topic, sorry. The redhead is extra. She's my granddaughter and she's extremely special.
Crazy
I'm going to share a great --- great perspective of climate change and how different we have it in the PNW and especially in snow country. The angle is slighter higher in winter as I could not get down in the snow or I wouldn't get down in the snow for the picture but. Here is a photo of our pond and patio/pergola area. It is hard to see the patio because the trees block it from view in the summer but you'll get a good idea. Then look at the following winter photo. It is shockingly different. This was five months apart, all this year. Oh, how So. Cal looks so good in winter months.
June 08
Where's the pond? It's under the snow.
Still gorgeous in the winter, I love snow, I wish we'd get more of it.
A fun idea to "extend" the beauty of astilbe blooms is to spray them with florist's spray paint once they lose their natural color and turn brown. It comes in many colors, is usually available in craft stores, and made for that purpose. I find the natural-looking reds to be best and the color lasts well into the winter. Fools most people for sure. One day, I'll get enough nerve to "create" an astilbe with blue blooms!
Crazy, your garden looks absolutely gorgeous both in spring AND winter! So beautiful! I know what you mean though. Here is my sun at the cactus garden at Balboa Park...
Wow, that is a huge cactus. And what a cute litte guy is growing under that cactus? Love the pictures with the kids in them. I am constantly putting the kids the the landscape so I can take pictures of them.
Crazy
Crazy, your garden is as wonderful as I remember from last year. Thanks for the updated pictures.
Crazy, I bet your grandkid(s) love that pond huh? I think I'd turn into a kid myself if I had one of those! How do you keep that water so blue? Sorry for the of-topic folks, but you gotta agree her stuff is worth it! lol!
Rob
The kids do love it. We have two granddaughters coming this weekend. You can't dive or swim like a pool but you can play around and sit on the bench rocks and under the water fall. It is about four feet deep in the center so we have to be in with the little ones. It is amazingly clear and it does not look that deep. We have an inline chlorinator and it works perfectly. We put in the large tablets about every two weeks and it takes care of itself. In the spring, we use very little but as the summer heats up we need more. The birds bathe in it and drink it. It is not so chlorinated that they don't like it. It is so clear and blue from the reflection of the sky. It has never had algae and the skimmer works as part of the pump so it keeps the surface clean. In the fall, the leaves do get in so we have to be on top of the skimmer, but the chlorine helps break it up so it is still clean. Here's a pic of the kids and grandkids.
Crazy
That's awesome! I didn't realize you could even go in!
The pond was designed to be swam in. If you look at the photo that I put in as June 08 before the snow one, it shows the steps leading in on the left side of the pond. It has a definate entrance that you can easily walk into. Our last pond was not like this and we wanted to be able to walk into it and the kids could sit on flat rocks and play in shallow water. It gets pretty deep in the middle for adults.
Crazy