Re: Artemesia 'Powis Castle'

In a message dated 3/24/02 5:23:46 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
jknoble@warwick.net writes:

<< Wow!  Claire, you have no difficulty growing this plant all the way up 
 there???  Now I think I'm really going crazy.  Here in Northern NJ, I've 
 lost 2 (separate attempts) in a bed that has at least 6 other 
 Artemesia cultivars that are doing great, >>


Somewhere along the way this got mixed up - we do grow it and have for years 
but it will not live over in the open garden.  I root the cuttings in summer 
sometime when I think of it and keep those young plants in a cold frame 
allwinter.   In the late spring, I put the young plants into the gardens 
where I think I would like a mass of grey foliage.  You can get a pretty good 
sized plant by midsummer in good soil and enough water.  This plant takes a 
lot of water while growing.  Also, here in upstate NY, full sun.

The older plants are potted, grown in large containers and kept in the cellar 
all winter mostly dormant.  When they become to large we start new ones in 
the pots.  Potted A. Powis Castle is easy to keep over.  As long as the temp 
stays low, it is a late starter.

I saw one of these made into a topiary in the Winterrowd/Eck garden in 
Vermont.  It was overwintered in cold storage also.  There was a stem about 
two inches in diameter.

Sorry, no magic in upstate NY.  The cold frame that keeps these plants and 
others like them is nearly half sand.  A great many plants will make it with 
that treatment.   After the ground freezes here, we fill up the frames with 
leaves and leave them that way until the middle of April, sometimes later.  
One year I had some kind of Hebe, a no-no in New York and it lived over and 
bloomed a second year in pure sand.  

The thing with this keeping overwinter semi-hardy plants is that it is a lot 
of work.  We kept a bay tree, Laurus nobilis two winters outdoors by burying 
the pot in a huge pile of woodchips.  The plant had grown too large to house 
indoors and we gave it a try.  

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

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