Re: lupines

In a message dated 6/7/00 8:21:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Blee811@aol.com 
writes:

<< My 3-year plants don't self seed, at least they haven't yet.  They're full 
of 
 seed pods right now, but they've had pods before too.  Bob, do you do 
 anything special with the seeds or let the plants take care of themselves?  
 Both of my plants are pink.
 Bill Lee >>

I have been round and round with lupines.  I do think the cooler the zone the 
better the plant.  You can see gone-wild fields of them in Vermont.  

As to the seed, cut it all off except the best blooming stalk and let that 
one become brown and dry.  Pull up the mother plant and scratch in the seed 
in the the same location.  This will help you (or me) to remember where those 
lupines will be growing.  The seed will germinate later in the summer and can 
be treated as a biennial.  As all biennials, the plants will be more 
floriferous if treated well in the the first year.

Alternatively you can collect the seed and plant it in a row, moving the 
strongest plants in the fall.  You guys in zone 6 have more time to do this 
than we do.

Most of the tall, fat, beautiful lupines are English hybrids.  If you can get 
hold of seed or plants that are old garden plants they will be sturdier but 
not as beautiful.  Dean, write to me in July and I will send you some of the 
older variety seed, it is a much more vigorous plant in shades of pink with a 
red eye.

Lupines here are attacked by some sort of whitish plant louse (not aphid) and 
the only cure is to cut the plant to the ground.  Not every plant is attacked 
and we do not have them every year.  This insect is on the underside of the 
leaf and numerous, covering most of plant.

The foxglove question on reseeding - the common foxglove sold as purpurea 
will seed all over the garden.  You can help things along by watching the the 
best colors and distributing them yourself.  Foxgloves produce tons of seed.  
You must learn to recognize the seedlings which germinate in the late summer. 
 If you weed them out - no plants.

Claire Peplowski
E Nassau, NY z4

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