Re: Cutting back

Pam,

It sounds to me like the seed mix may not have been right for your
particular conditions and may have contained more annuals and biennials
than perennials.  I'm no authority on wildflower mixes, but I have read
that it is difficult to get wildflower meadow areas established, and that
you really need to add the perennials as plants, not seeds.  I've found
that native Rudbeckia sometimes comes back and sometimes doesn't and that
it prefers a fairly heavy soil - at least mind did.  I had it coming back
for several years, but I think that last year the asters won as I don't see
any this year :-(.

Could be that the mowing removed the seeds that would have landed on the
ground and re-seeded for you this year...did your husband leave the debris
as mulch or bag it?

Next time around, check what plants are included in the mix and determine
if they are annuals, biennials or perennials and then do a bit of research
on them to find out what kind of soil and native conditions they come from.
 That way, you will have a better idea on whether they are likely to become
established in your garden.

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
Editor:  Gardening in Shade
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----------
> From: Pamela Palmer <colitas@juno.com>
> Date: Saturday, June 13, 1998 10:27 AM
> 
> Several people have mentioned cutting columbines back to get more bloom. 
> Can you overdo that?
> 
> For the past four years we had a portion of our landscape planted with
> wildflowers from the wildflower mulch packages and containers found at
> Agway or in catalogs.  Started with a 10 x 10 bed and each year added one
> or two beds.  Every year we left it to seed itself and then in the spring
> pulled out dead stalks.  The past two years my husband put the cut
> Miscanthus and Pennisetum grasses on top of the beds in the spring and
> then raked it off when the green stalks started protruding.  
> 
> We never really got the same flowers twice except for Sweet William and
> Hot Pink Catchfly (Silene Armeria) and they were gorgeous.  The Rudbeckia
> only grew the second season and never reseeded.  
> 
> Well last fall my husband waited until things were dead and then in early
> November he mowed the plots.  This made the area look better over the
> winter and again it was mild with no snow cover.  So this year when he
> raked off the grasses we found NOTHING growing except four orange-colored
> wallflower or primrose plants.  NOTHING.
> 
> Was it those plantings weren't true perennials, or the mowing, or the
> ground hog ate down to the roots, or the rocky, sandy soil is just not
> good enough?  The area is about 60 x 60 and surrounded by olive and oak
> trees, bayberry, juniper and rugosa rosa hedges.  I can't make enough
> compost for all of it.  I'm supposedly Zone 7, a 1/10 of a mile from Cape
> Cod Bay, windy but not salty.
> 
> Pam
> 
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