Lean dry soil in full sun works best for any Centaurea :)

Vera

Darn, I was just going to post that! I used to grow wonderful bachelor's buttons (common name for this in my area). Then they got floppier and floppier. I finally realized it was because I kept improving my soil. They didn't even self-seed as they had done so prolifically. They preferred the old lean, dry soil. Well, it was too late--plus the woodchucks discovered them--one of their favorite treats. Ate them to the ground. So now I don't have them anymore :(

I wonder if a person pinched them back right away in the spring if they'd be more compact. They'd bloom a little later, but it might be worth a try.

Tried pinching back, but it did not seem to work too well. It seems that once he heat hits - they just let go.

I cut mine down after they flower, they come back and flower again later. If I leave them they just look crummy for the rest of the summer...

Maybe they need some fertilizer to "Beef" them up. I am in a zone 5 too and mine didnt flop , and i have them in dry soil, but i did fert. them once. Or, maybe you could just try tying them togather?
Sarah

Big sigh...I love these plants, too, but like so many other perennials that I love, asclepias tuberosa, for example, my soil is just too rich - you spend your whole gardening career trying to get better soil, and then you find out that it's too good! Anybody have any ideas for how to "reverse amend" soil, so that it's not so good??? :-)

Isn't that crazy! You would never think your soil could be too good!!!

Debgrow,
One method is to add poultry grit, crushed gravel or coarse sand to your soil. I converted a raised vegetable garden to a "dry" plants/rock garden type bed with this method. First I removed about a third or slightly more of the enriched soil and spread it out in a thin layer in other areas of the garden. I then added the gravel mix to the bed. I don't add organic amendments to this bed and use rough pea gravel and small rocks as a mulch.

Through the years I have occasionally used other things here, and in some planting areas in my shrub border, such as leftover soilless seed growing mix, perlite, sphagnum peat moss, vermiculite, sand, or Profile - anything I had left over from other projects - to open my heavy clay soil (without necessarily adding nutrients) which it really doesn't always need. Things like Centaurea montana, ornamental grasses, yarrows, geums, gaillardia, dianthus, & salvias grow well in these beds and also do far less flopping.

I gave up on this plant for the same reason. Try moving it if you can to a spot in your yard that isn't so desirable. The traditional (shorter) bachelor buttons do much better for me.

Hi! Ive had this plant for awhile. Mine is planted in a slightly haded and slightly moist location. It flops a good deal after blooming because of this. I just cut it back. Other things are planted in front of it to cover it up. And it will rebloom later in the summer if you cut it down, which is a bonus. The plants thrown off quite a few seedlings, the ones that find their way into the drier bed stand upright much better.
CMK

Thanks CMK et al. I'm trying centaurea montana next year. From everything I've read, it's normal to flop. Cutting it back so it will rebloom and planting something in front of it, (e.g., festucca glauca), seems to be the tried & true approach.

A reasonably upright Centaurea montana. Gets cut back after bloom and pretty much disappears under the hosta (Fried Bananas) on the sunny west side edge of a crabapple tree. Crowding can also be useful in holding things like C montana up. Planted in very heavy clay soil amended with sphagnum peat, humus, and Profile (fired clay bits for soil loosening).

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Raised gravel bed allow me to plant things that would otherwise not thrive in my heavy soil.

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