This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

[SG] Hosta replacement plants

Dear Barbara: I think Gene Bush's suggestion to replace your hostas with
two layers of plants, one going dormant in early or midsummer, the other
taking up at that point, is an excellent one, but others' suggestions so far
have been for invasive plants.  I lost a valued friendship once because I
gave an elderly friend a bit of lamium.  She thought it attractive, and
divided it and distributed it through her beautiful woodland garden
(unbeknownst to me), which it destroyed within two years.  Thereafter,
she refused to consort with me, or to hear my apologies, and even
declined to be pacified by gifts of daffodil bulbs (she said they were,
no doubt, invasive, "coming from you").

One of my favorite late-emerging perennials (for shade or sun) that
appears just when daffodil and other spring foliage (tritelia, for
example) is vanishing, is leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides), which
has beautiful royal blue flowers (without purple tinges) July to frost, and
which is quite drouth-resistant.  It's also known as plumbago, but is not
to be confused with the tropical powder-blue-flowered vine, Plumbago
capensis.  Give it a whirl.  Buy a pot now (it should be in bloom at your
nursery), plant it immediately, mark its place well, and watch it appear
in mid-to-late June next year.  Brookside Gardens, in Wheaton, Maryland,
has used it for many years as a summer groundcover for the Miniature
Spring Bulbs Garden, under a shady canopy of Thundercloud plums.  For
those who live in the Potomac Valley, and who can visit Brookside, the
Miniature Spring Bulbs Garden is between the upper of the two Perennial
Gardens, and the Fragrance Garden.

Leadwort is easily divided after the first year.  There are various
species and cultivars, but I have grown only the one mentioned above.

Cheers,

Harry

Alpine-L, the Electronic Rock Garden Society, L.Parsons & H.Dewey, listowners
To subscribe, send the message INFO to Alpine-L-Request@nic.surfnet.NL
To write Louise or Harry, please use the above address ALWAYS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index