Re: New Plants for spring

Yes, of course I had the ph checked.  Soils here are acidic--about 5.7, but
that was just about right for the shade garden plants.  Because I had such a
high magnesium content, the private soil consultant advised me not to use
dolomitic limestone but only what is sometimes called Hi calcium lime.  It's
not available locally, and I have to get it from some distance away.  I
actually had to use soil sulfur to acidify even more for blueberries and
cranberries.
Gardening here has been an adventure, and still is.  Last season I lost a
Calycanthus 'Athens' within three months of buying it from Noble Plants.  I
had lost the straight species in a different spot several years ago, but
thought I'd try again.  I can see no rhyme or reason why some plants grow
here and some fail--even within the same genus and sometimes even cultivars
of the same species.  It keeps things exciting, I guess.  On the plus side,
the soil is very easily worked, the rocks are picturesque, and my water
comes from a powerful spring that comes to my gardens and house by gravity
feed.
Merri Morgan
Zone 5b, WV
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gene Bush" <genebush@otherside.com>
To: <perennials@hort.net>
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2004 8:42 AM
Subject: Re: New Plants for spring


> What a story!
>     Trials and tribulations abound in your garden! I do notice the one
thing
> you have not mention here is soil pH. Did you have a soil test to
determine
> the pH? See where Frank says you would be very acidic. Do you know. Sure
> would make a bit difference in what plants do well and which ones just
fade
> away over a year or two. If the pH is too far out of line for the plant it
> can not feed... starves to death.
>     My congratulations on sticking with it and coming out on top.
>     Gene E. Bush
> Munchkin Nursery & Gardens, llc
> www.munchkinnursery.com
> genebush@munchkinnursery.com
> Zone 6/5  Southern Indiana
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > Hello Gene,
> > Hmmm...my soil problems.  To start with, it's pure sand, and it's
> extremely
> > deficient in nitrogen and phosphorous.  That's all I can figure from
> > standard soil tests; though I also paid a private soil consultant for
> > specialty tests, nothing special showed up.  Despite soil amendments,
the
> > first three years here many flowers refused to bloom at all--columbine,
> > tiarellas, iris cristata ( a native in the area), geraniums, epimediums,
> > heuchera.  Each year I have poured into the gardens a fortune in
colloidal
> > or rock phosphate, dried blood, purchased compost (I could never have
made
> > enough and what I had went to the vegetable garden), and Planters II, a
> > trace mineral supplement.  Strange wilts and blights killed many
> plants--for
> > three years peas withered and died, tomatoes died from what I think was
> > verticillium, root crops were stunted and bitter, a planting of vinca
> minor
> > blighted and almost died.  Colchicums I planted one fall came up the
> > following spring with small leaves and then just dwindled away, never
> > blooming again.  Cimicifugas didn't bloom for four years after I got
them,
> > though they were in bloom when I purchased them.
> >     Even now, I cannot grow Heucheras (except for H. Raspberry Regal),
> > either for flowers or foliage.  They simply don't thrive, no matter what
> > garden I  move them to, and the purple foliage ones like 'Velvet Night'
> have
> > always been real favorites.  Liatris spicata will not bloom for me,
though
> > Liatris aspera and L. squarrosa do very well.  Corepsis verticillata
> > 'Moonbeam' will not grow at all, though Coreposis tripteris is
> magnificent.
> > My asparagus bed has fusarium wilt and I lost two Cotinus last summer to
> > verticillium wilt.  Roses, fortunately not a favorite of mine, will not
> grow
> > at all.
> >     However, after six full seasons and more money than I ever dreamed I
> > would spend in soil amendments (as well as hundreds of bags of autumn
> leaves
> > scavenged from friends in town and a permanent mulch of hay on the
> vegetable
> > garden), I am seeing results.  Since I could not grow many of the plants
I
> > had been growing in all my previous years of gardening, I was forced to
> > learn a whole new palette of plants that include various agastaches,
> > phlomises, callirhoes, dracocephalums, pardancandas, penstemons, though
I
> > still haven't been able to get P. strictus, supposed to be easy, to
bloom.
> > I also depend heavily on achilleas, salvias, ornamental grasses,
> baptisias,
> > siberian iris, sedums, and my native garden is a mass of huge plants
like
> > Eupatoriums, ironweed, Persicaria polymorpha, patrinia, and asters.
> >     Because of the deer, I avoid hostas, using Brunneras and Pulmonaria
in
> > their place, and have only a few daylilies, though they do well here.
> > Fortunately, most of the new plants I grow, are not especially
interesting
> > to deer, and gardening in deer country has become a specialty of mine.
I
> do
> > workshops on it locally.  It is indeed, much more than having just a
list
> of
> > deer resistant plants.
> >     I could go on and on about the peculiarities of my soil, but by now
> you
> > probably have the idea.  Oh, I have forgotten to mention the huge
boulders
> > that dot the gardens, very picturesque, and the huge ones just below the
> > surface that make nonsense of a plan worked out on paper, not so
> > picturesque.  And I have lots and lots of moles with whom I live in an
> > uneasy detente. They don't eat plants or bulbs, but they do push bulbs
> > around and make them disappear.
> >     In over 40 years of gardening, for myself and others, in three
states
> > and two zones, I have never encountered soil like this.  I tell people
> that
> > the gods of gardening decided they better give this piece of land to a
> > really good gardener because it would completely discourage anyone else.
> I
> > am grateful for their faith in me, and they have forced me to become an
> even
> > better gardener.  I bloom where I'm planted.
> > Merri Morgan
> > Zone 5b, WV
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Gene Bush" <genebush@otherside.com>
> > To: <perennials@hort.net>
> > Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 8:48 AM
> > Subject: Re: New Plants for spring
> >
> >
> > > Hello Merri,
> > >     Please... we all have "soil problems" since we all want to grow
> things
> > > that are not native to your backyards. I am always building raised
beds
> > and
> > > mucking about with my soil. I would be interested in what you see as a
> > > problem and what you are doing about altering reality;-)
> > >     Deer resistant is a deer with a full tummy for the neighbors
> yard....
> > >     Gene E. Bush
> > > Munchkin Nursery & Gardens, llc
> > > www.munchkinnursery.com
> > > genebush@munchkinnursery.com
> > > Zone 6/5  Southern Indiana
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > Many thanks, Gene.  I'd forgotten I had asked the question, but I am
> > very
> > > > grateful you went to the trouble to find the name tags.  I have such
> > very
> > > > difficult soil--I could go on forever describing its problems, but
> I'll
> > > > spare you--that I am always looking for plants that will thrive
here.
> > And
> > > > be deer resistant to boot!
> > > > Merri Morgan
> > > > Zone 5b, WV
> > >
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