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Re: Obedient Plant

> I just purchased a 4" pot of this plant and it seems to be doing nicely.
> It's about eight inches high and has two stems.  Should I cut it back and
> just let the roots/shoots grow this year v. perhaps getting a flower or
two?
If you cut it back, you will delay the bloom by a couple of weeks.  But you
will force out the side shoots and they should come into bloom.  It's an OK
trade to make.  And, you should be able to root the cuttings in water or a
barely damp soil mix (place the pot in a plastic bag to keep the humidity
high).  
 
Invasiveness depends on the variety.  

The seed-propagated 'Snow Crown / Schneekrone' (SC) is fairly
short-rhizomed, and not terribly invasive.  It is however, pretty variable,
otherwise.  Seed germination and subsequent bloom in year 1 is fairly
reliable.

SC and the vegetatively propagated 'Summer Snow' (SS) are both about to
bloom in my USDA zone 6 central PA garden.  SS is about three days ahead of
the earliest SC selections.  SS is moderately invasive.  

The vegetatively propagated mid-pink 'Rose Bouquet' (RB) blooms later into
the summer (late July here).  RB is strongly upright, and is quite
invasive.  There are seed varieties sold under the same name which appear
to be nothing more than seed taken from RB.  The RB seed lots I've grown
(many sources) were erratic germinators, and the seedlings all took two
years to bloom.  

'Vivid' (VI)(veg-prop) is deep pink, and the latest (mid-August) of the
four most common varieties.  VI is more compact, but mostly because of
thinner stems.  The stems flop, the tips grow upright, and the clump seems
to be more compact.  The plants root where the flopped stems touch the
ground.  Moderately invasive.  

This is the first year for 'Variegata' (VA) in my garden, so I have nothing
to say about that one, yet.

The other two varieties that I've seen are 'Red Beauty' and 'Morden's
Beauty'.  Both bloomed with VI during the first year, and both bloomed as a
mid-pink. I've been told that 'Red Beauty' is red as a rosette in the
spring, but that it loses the redness as the plant grows out of the
overwintering rosette.  I've seen that phenomenon with some selections I've
made out of the wild.  

Rick Grazzini
rickg@centrelab.com 

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