Re: CULT: companion plants

In a message dated 1/1/05 7:56:37 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
lmann@volfirst.net writes:

<< Yes indeed.  Hard to imagine what kind of climate/gardener would find
 variegated pokeweed desirable! >>

Probably the same folks who bought that variegated horseradish that was the 
darling of the jaded set a few years ago.

<<One small area where rows are too close together to spray between with 
Roundup and where there must be a huge reservoir of pokeweed seeds , I've had a 
battle with it every year. Also blackberry in that small patch.  I think the 
seeds came in with
some hay or horse manure mulch. >>

There is an enornmous amount of urban poke in Richmond. There is one stand 
near me that has individuals five feet tall with stems like broomsticks and 
roots to China. Handsome when in berry, certainly, and the wildlife enjoys it, but 
the seedling situation gets pretty tedious, as does the magenta bird crap 
situation. 
 
Of course, one person's splendid weed is another's stately New World 
ornamental. 
Peggy Cornett, Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants up 
in Charlottesville told me that while being feted at one of the great British 
gardens a few years ago she had to restrain the reflex to lean over into an 
herbaceous border and yank up a pokeweed; she realized just in time that it had 
been deliberately planted. 
 
<<If you think of any more really robust, summer blooming showy "weeds"
with fat roots, little foliage at ground level that might self sow here, I'd 
give them a try.  Something taller than iris foliage.>>

Tithonia? Fennel for the butterflies? Coreopsis tinctoria? Verbena 
bonariensis--that supposed to be V. peruviana according to Brickell but no one is 
listening to him on this--which I like with Asclepias curassavica. Tender 
perennials, technically.  

Cordially,

Anner Whitehead
Richmond, VA USA
USDA Zone 7 

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