Re: Crambe advice needed





Valerie Lowery@ZEON
05/24/99 08:08 AM

Myrna:

I don't know if anyone has replied to you yet, but I can help you out on
the space needed for a crambe.  A lot!  I ordered my babies from Bluestone,
too.  This is their third year and no blooms yet.  The leaves are every bit
as big as the book tells you.  I measured just one and it is about 2 feet
long and a little over a foot wide.  That's just one leaf.  The first two
years the plants stayed in check; this year is a different story and I keep
hoping for those elusive five foot blooms.  Since everything else is
blooming ahead of schedule, I'm thinking that this is yet another year
without blooms.  What can I do to get this thing blooming??

Tony Lord of English gardening fame suggests that a gardener leave about 3
feet open around this plant.  Of course I read it and thought, "not in KY
clay," but I'm regretting it.  I planted such delicate things around it
(like campanula, foxglove, asiatic lilies, and shasta daisies) and you
can't find the poor things.  They are buried under the leaves!

Word to the wise:  if you plan on growing crambe, be mindful that on the
undersides of these huge leaves are tiny stiff hairs that love to stick
into your skin.  They are so tiny and translucent that you may not be aware
that you have these stuck on you until you rub against something and feel
the stinging pain.  Don't try to handle the leaves too much.  I learned the
hard way while searching for my other plants.

Val in KY
zone 6a





mmiller@nemontel.net on 05/21/99 05:44:09 PM

Please respond to perennials@mallorn.com

To:   perennials@mallorn.com
cc:    (bcc: Valerie Lowery/Zeon)
Subject:  Crambe advice needed




There are four baby crambe cordifolias waiting patiently to be planted
here, and I need some advice about spacing with other plants. I have this
vision of dark red oriental lilies growing up through those airy crambe
flowers. Am I nuts? Are crambe like gypsophila, where the flowers are WAY
bigger than the leaves, or do I need to plant those lilies pretty far away?
Space is not an issue, only my energy (how much more rototilling and
grass-digging can I tolerate before the rapidly aging back plumb gives
up?!)
Thanks for your thoughts,
Myrna, Zone 3, Montana (where three boxes from Bluestone Perennials arrived
today, two boxes from Brent & Becky's Bulbs arrived yesterday, and I still
haven't planted all the stuff from Dutch Gardens that arrived a month ago)
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