Thanks to those who replied to my 'Newbie Questions'! I have started to transplant some Spiderwort, but it doesn't seem to like it much. Some of the leaves seem to be dying at the ends. Should I cut of the damage alone, or take off the entire leaf? Below is a picture of the pissed off plant, as well as pictures of the very uneven beds that were mostly planted by the former owners. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Actually the plant, overall, looks nice and healthy to me. You could trim off the damaged parts of affected leaves so it will look nice but I think your plant is going to be fine. I think it's just suffering a little transplant shock. I have two colors of spiderwort and it's a really tough plant. Mine is on a west wall of the house where it gets blasted by the very hot summer sun (95-100) all summer and it never even thinks about wilting. There isn't much that can survive that area but the spiderwort seems to love it there.
I agree with Naturelover it is just a little transplant shock. Mine did it a little too. Keep it watered for a while.
jofka: from that photo it looks good to me. The plant on the right looks ready to bloom in the next week or so even.
nature: your spiderwort lives all summer? I like the plant also, though I know some folks just consider it a weed (sorta like oxalis or clover). In my experience it seems to start coming up around February(or maybe sooner and I just don't notice it) and then will bloom sometime between March and April then die off. I've never purposefully planted it before but I've lived a couple places now where it was a 'volunteer'. We only had a few this year and all have died off already. They were that nice sorta blue/ sorta purple color.
Hmmm neworleansdude, wonder if it's because y'all are hotter then us? But, like I said, mine is on a west wall here it gets blasted by very hot sun. It will take a little siesta in August but blooms again come September till frost. I have the purple and another shorter version that's more of a pink/purple mix. I know lots of folks consider them weeds but I love mine.
Nature: that's great for you, I've never seen a fall blooming spiderwort. The ones we had this year were NW facing, and still....blaaah. I know yall get as hot as we do, so maybe it has to do with the soil or your type. ::shurgs::
A nifty fact: In my North American Wildlife Guide, it is mentioned that spiderwort will change color when exposed to radiation. No BS. My understanding of it is that any naturally darker flower will still bloom but be of a lighter shade when exposed. Doesn't do any good for the white ones, but for the blue/purple ones it can be an indicator. Crazy huh?
Pretty neat little fact though neworleans. I love learning interesting little tidbits like that. Maybe it is my soil. I have clay and add LOT'S of peat moss when I plant anything here. I do also run soaker hoses through all my flowerbeds and then pile mulch on top of them (helps protect them from the hot sun). When it gets real dry during the summer, I can just hook up a hose and water once a week. I started leaving the soaker hoses because you know how, when it gets real hot, we can only water until about 10 a.m. After that, the hose gets so hot it's putting some VERY hot water on those poor plants :-{
I've always tended to do evening waterings...no earlier than 7pm and have been known to mow the lawn or water stuff at midnight. It just get's so darn hot in the summer. I have a push mower, not a gas one so that it doesn't bother the neighbors.
Soaker hoses eh? The house my gf is buying looks like we have some and in the back utility room looks like there's even a timer for them, but I think it's all busted. Looks like it was installed pre-storm and this place did take on about two feet of water (in a raised house) inside. I'm not sure I want to spend the time or money on doing something like that. I am interested in asking how many hours did it take to install and at what cost (if you don't mind sharing, I know that is a sorta not polite question). I really don't mind using a hose and sprinkler, but if it's something I could do myself over a weekend for only 200 or 300 bucks I may look into trying to instal something like that this autumn. Also what sort of square footage or lot size? This lot is about 40x120, 1600 sq ft. for inplantable when you add house,shed, and deck. I'm not a big fan of grass, I only plan on keeping about 150 sq ft of St. Aug in the back yard.
I do tend to cram plants in, which is one of the reasons why I've had some problems with all the bugs in the rental where we currently live.
Any help or suggestions?
Thanks.
Hi dude,
Actually, I'm not talking about the expensive type of soaker system. I mean actual soaker hoses that I just lay along the rows of veggies or flowerbeds and cover them with mulch (pine straw for the flowerbeds and wheat straw for the veggie garden). A whoooole lot less expensive and not a lot of work involved. I put them out in the spring and take them back up late in the fall when the garden is done. We didn't consider installing a sprinkler system because we have 5 1/2 acres in yard (6 left as a wood lot) so it would have been a little over budget to cover all that :-} We're getting centipede grass established because it's a slow grower so naturally doesn't need to be mowed very often and it doesn't need a lot of fertilizer. It gets watered when it rains. BTW, I have no problem at all with you asking questions--don't mind sharing at all. I'm no fan of grass either since I do all or most of the mowing (hubby is working part time for a while--grave shift) so I've planted over 100 trees so far and eventually plan to put some ground cover down in the creek bottom so I don't have to mow it. My veggie garden is huge (don't know exactly how big--will ask hubby when he gets up). I grow LOT'S of veggies so I can put up a lot and still have plenty left to eat fresh. I typically use the double row system for planting veggies. I also have a good sized fruit orchard and a thornless blackberry patch. I have plans to enlarge everything as time and money permit. Is your girlfriend's house in the city or out a ways? If you like to garden organically, chickens do an ace job on bug patrol and weed cleanup. Of course, you'd need to let your veggies get big enough that they wouldn't eat those too. This would also assume you will have your garden fenced so you could turn them lose inside.
