Re: Penstemons

I grew Husker's Red penstemon from seed about five years ago, got a lot
of plants, and they're still going strong; but as Claire wrote, they're
not red at all; the stems of a few are red, but the flowers are white;
and they bloom in June; I have them in full sun with good drainage.

Isabelle Hayes, Catskill Mts., NYS, zone 5ish

ECPep@aol.com wrote:
 
> That's a good question.  The plant, 'Husker's Red', is very popular in garden
> centers, there are tons of for sale all the time.   It turns green halfway
> through summer here so I don't much like it but I thought it was a good
> plant.  Try some hybrids that you grow yourself and again, they need to be on
> good drainage as wet soil for any period of time kills them.  Beside the very
> expensive Thompson and Morgan seed, we are seeing four or five other British
> brands here and a lot of Penstemon hybrids are included.  I suppose you could
> get really annoyed after all this drought, Bill, but they grow well in
> gravelly places.  They live longer if on sharp drainage.
> 
> If you had to do some work making sharp drainage, it might be that you would
> leave alone some of these plants but in our case, we live on sharp drainage
> so the making of water retentive beds is the job.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PERENNIALS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index