RE: Lobelias

I have had problems over wintering them, but found that if you do
nothing ( no mulching etc.) they seem to return at a much better rate.

Donna
Lobelia cardinalis - the native - is quite hardy into usda zone 3 when grown in damp shade. I've seen it growing in a foot of water (high fall water table) and happily blooming its head off. It is however, considered a short-lived perennial at the best of times.

L. siphilitica is quite hardy in 4. It self sows around my garden with abandon and I consider both the blue and white a weed. It does grow very well in sun in regularly moist soil and it survives nicely in dry shade except that it stays much shorter. The ones out in the sun (dry again) I let live this year are only 12" tall and about to bloom now. They'll self sow out there and if we have a wetter summer next year, they'll be taller. Again, while it prefers a damp shade, it will grow and sow anywhere it lands. :-) Moisture is the key to height, not sunshine.

The other coloured cultivars L. x speciosa derived from breeding with the tender L. splendens (native to Mexico) to L. cardinalis are not reliably hardy here in my zone 4 garden. Maybe its the garden, the gardener or maybe its the breeding (I'm guessing the genetics) :-) You can expect those to be short lived. Too many tender genes in there for my garden climate. This includes most of the coloured forms including 'Queen Victoria' which is too often sold as a hardy perennial by ill-informed nurseries. There may be some of these that are hardier than others that I have not tried yet and I'd look forward to trying them. PlantFinder lists a bunch in this class. ;-)

One of the big killers is a variable winter with too many freeze-thaws. If you get this plant growing in an early spring and then hang a big freeze on it, you're going to kill it. Dry or wet doesn't seem to be a factor in my garden. I also find - contrary to some writers - that a heavy organic mulch tends to leave the plant weaker in the spring than no mulch. Given that I love to mulch my gardens, this is a bit of a drawback and the plant now lives only in areas without an organic mulch. L. siphilitica actually self sows quite nicely in the gravel pathways around my front garden.

my .02

Doug
Doug Green
Author of the award winning "Gardening Wisdom"
See gardening articles at http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com

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