hyper fertilization ... or amendment of the soil is a starting place ...

whats your protocol on either???

other than that.. unless you give us specific plants.. its hard to make relevant suggestions ...

e.g. if your oak trees are flopping.. well .. its just too much water saturation in the soil ... lol

ken

OK, I definitely don't over-fertilize, I've been thinking I do the opposite. I do have clay-ey soil and it has been raining a lot lately, BUT I seem always to have the flop problem.

Plants I have that flop:
--peonies (OK, I know peonies always flop but mine seem to get much taller and more floppy than other people's -- mine are like 4' plus tall and have tons of blooms and end up on the ground even without rain.)
--columbine (since when does this flop?)
--salvia (spreads, then flops)
--yarrow (ditto)
--phlox (ditto)
--delphinium (ditto)
--lamium (starts off a nice tidy mound, then spreads in the middle and flops)
--bearded iris (individual stems flop)
--tall balloon flower (ditto)
--campanula persicifolia (ditto)

I'm sure there are others but you get the drift.

I pinch the top two leaves from each stem on my tall phlox around the middle/end of May to control height and increase blooms. It's worked the past couple of years.

I've learned that with balloon flowers, it's best to whack them by half the first week of June to control height (and thus flopping) and to increase the number of blooms. I use pruning shears. The cut stems will ooze a milky liquid but the plants are otherwise unfazed by this ritual whacking.

With penstemon/beardtongue, iris + a few others, I just use stakes to support their stems. I'm willing to lend a helping hand when the flowers are worth waiting for. My salvia splayed open this year for the first time so it looks like I'll be dividing it. I wouldn't be without it in the garden--it's planted with many other butterfly magnets so it stays where it is.

Here's a solution for the peony. Mine also reach the 4' mark and without support would be on the ground. Course, I also realize that not everyone is into this style of garden 'decor':

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I'm getting a lot of flopping this year, too. My lovely Salvia 'May Night' is practically prostrate. I'm betting linlily is right and it's the inordinate amount of rain in April and May that made everything so tall. April showers make May flowers...lie down.

LOL, mmqchdygg! That's hilarious. I would so do it, but everything I've tried with my peonies has ended up with the stems broken. They flop over whatever support I give them. I dunno, I'm actually thinking of getting rid of them despite loving the huge fragrant blossoms... They just always end up on the ground like drunken ballerinas with their tutus around their necks.

Gardenweed, thanks for the tip about whacking the balloon flower and dividing the salvia. I wondered why some of my salvia have not been flopping, and I guess maybe it's the younger specimens. So I will divide them next March or April.

Linlily, I have used the stakes on iris and they work well until there's too much wind or rain, which we've had a ton of this year. Guess the truth is I'm also LAZY and dislike having too many plants that require staking.

jayco,
Get tree Peonies or Itoh (intersectional). Neither of them needs staking in my garden. Just to give you an idea how they look with their huge blooms:

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Although I really like mmqchdygg's solution too! Such a rare example of a good humor in the garden :)

Alina, my god, YES! Tree peonies! Yours are beautiful! I love tree peonies but they are so darn expensive... There is a house near us that's been for sale forever and no one is living there, and there is a glorious tree peony just going to waste. I am SOOO tempted to go there in the middle of the night and dig it up. ;)

Both Tree Peonies on pic #1 and #2 were bought for about $23 each from Garden Crossings sale. The pictures show them at their second year in the garden. Well worth the investment IMO.
This year, I was almost ready to say that Shima-Nishiki Peony (second picture) has TOO MANY flowers:

{{gwi:211771}}

I SOOO understand your temptation :) Maybe, you should talk to the owners? If the plant is going to die without a proper care?

Delphinium and tall balloon flower tend to be floppy which is why I grow short versions of both. For the balloon flower I grow 'Sentimental Blue' which is a dwarf version (although mine often grows to be over two feet tall).

The fact that your salvia and yarrow flop indicates you have very rich soil, both tend to prefer lean and mean.

Personally, my attitude tends to be be if you want to lie down go ahead! I just plant something nearby so the lazy lant can lie on it, lol.

I love the chair.
My answer is to stake. I have a collection of them, from classy to cheeky. I try to do themed or complimenting groupings to make it looked planned and not haphazard. But the trick for me is to stake early so that the plant will grow into the cording I use around it. If I get to it to late, it looks wadded up and jumbled.
I pinch fall asters, evening primrose. I also over plant and many things couldn't possibly fall, er flop.
True. This years rains have flattened columbine and
Orientle Poppies. Oh well.
Smiles,
D...

I quit growing Salvias because of the flopping.

Is it putting them where the sun is directly over them?

===>>>> why do you ask this.. is not your flower garden in full blistering sun????

good on not complicating it all with too much fert ....

otherwise.. some springs are so 'good' ... the plants just bolt .. huge fast growth ... and things flop over ...

peony with those big bulbous heads.. ALWAYS flop ...

too much shade.. means possible weaker growth ... though things might not fail.. and even bloom .... they just might not grow to expectation ... which in your case is defined as standing upright ...

ken

I would just add that lots of plants flop if you wait too long to divide them...some of these could be older plants that simply need division.

Yes, I think I do need to divide more frequently -- see above comment re: my laziness. Next spring I WILL DIVIDE! (I sense a song coming on....)

And yeah, OK, I should stake more and certainly earlier.

About sun, well, my sunny bed is in full sun except that it's also shaded partly by the eaves of the house and the plants in the back tend to sprawl forward, so I guess that's always gonna be an issue, haven't solved it yet.

Alina, yes, I would love to ask the owners but they have long since vamoosed, and I doubt a realtor would say, "Why yes! Please dig up this pesky tree peony!" So I'll just have to look longingly every time we pass by the place. However, $23 on sale from Garden Crossings sounds pretty doable. When do they have their sales?

And thanks, everyone. Just knowing y'all have the same problem with your gardens is helpful. Lately I've been feeling the summer-out-of-control thing, and imagining that only *my* garden looks this messy!

Hi,
I'd like to recommend a book called The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy Desatbo-Aust. She gives absolutely clear field-tested advice about how to make plants less work. She addresses exactly the plants and the issues you write about. You'll learn how and when to cut back or pinch phlox,sedums,balloon flowers and what to do after the baptista blooms and looks ragged and the geraniums (perennial ones) have lain down and taken a forever-rest.

I found this one worth buying and refer to several times every year.

BTW, if it I pinch my phlox and monarda by half by June 1 thin them as well. Same for autumn joy. Sometimes things get a second pinch if it has been very rainy and warm.

Good luck!
Marie

Marie, thank you! I OWN that book! It's somewhere around here. I read some of it, oh, last December or January, I think. I can't remember what she said, though, so I'll have to re-read it, when I get done staking everything ;)

That is funny, I also own this book, but I completely forgot about it! Thanks for reminding us Marie :)

As for Garden Crossings, they do not have regular sales. I am subscribed to their newsletter, so I receive messages about their promotions. They do not have many :( I love this company - sometimes, their more expensive plants are better than several cheap ones. For example, I divided a Daylily I got from them into 4 clumps, 1-3 fans each.

Thanks Alina, I'll subscribe to their newsletter and keep my eye open for tree peony sales. You are such an enabler! And your tree peonies look so amazing!

I read it once or twice and sort of forgot about it. When I've gone back to recently, I got a lot more out of it. You know, I don't actually like her own gardens pictured in the book. They are too chaotic. But I love her advice!
Marie

Gardenweed and simcam, my flopping Salvia is new--put in as gallon-size plants last summer. How often do you typically have to divide it? Mine gets full sun.

For Peonies, I use the rings with the grids, this helps tremendously however they still flop if the blooms are very top-heavy or we get any rain during the bloom period.

I also go through the garden and give some of the perennials a hair cut with smaller hedge shears. Just did this yesterday. I cut back Asters, Phlox, Monarda, Solidago, Agastache, Helianthus, etc. This makes them shorter and more compact - less prone to flopping. Also it delays the bloom time a bit.

You can buy many kinds of supports but there are never all the right sizes. Someone on this forum had a great idea I read a few years ago. She/he cut down tomato cages to various heights. One cage made about 3 supports, and cheaply! The wire is steel, so you need a very heavy duty cutter to do this, like a bolt cutter. I have short one tier ones for the nepeta, 2 tier ones for the phlox, etc. I stash them all behind an evergreen for the winter.

I use the DiSabato book religiously.

Plants like Salvia are easy. Plant in full sun in soil with excellent drainage. Do not water. Do not fertilize. Cut flowers often for bouquets, etc. Deadhead as necessary. Watch it bloom again. Repeat, all summer, from Step 2 on.
Do you fertilize your lawn? I would look for overfeeding from lawn fertilizer that has washed into the garden.
Some plants, like delphiniums and peonies, just need staked.

Some plants just need to be staked, of course, as they are naturally floppy :)

But there are some in my garden this year flopping over that NEVER do ... like Columbine Black Barlow, which has never lay down flat on the ground like it is this year, never before in all the years I have grown this plant. I am blaming it on the rain, it has been such a wet Spring and the plant is huge and I think it just can't support itself. I had never seen a Columbine flop before either!

April shower bring May flowers ... but too many May showers bring June floppers :)

For salvia flop, I just use those cheap plastic 12-24" wide, short fencing things from Lowes or HD. Funny thing is that the black just blends right in and no one sees it. I shove them in front of the plants, and that holds up the flower stalks during the late spring rains. After the first flush, they never get enough blooms to flop again in the season, so I move the little "fences" over where needed. In the fall, they serve as graveyard fencing for spooky Halloween scenes. Pretty versatile for $5 each.

Obviously they won't work for larger plants, but they're great for the shorter ones.

Here is a link that might be useful: Little Fences

"the well tended perennial garden" by tracy disabota-aust has some great photos of pruned and un-pruned flowers and bushes well worth the read
i disbud most all my plants take off the first bud of the season this will make the plant start making more buds around the original stem, i also use for some tall coneflowers a 2 tier/ 3 tier plate rack the kind you use for setting out on your table when entertaining, it looks like a peony ring but it's made out of a heavier metal or iron, i pick these up at yard sales and goodwills stores for a 1. they never have fell over or broken like a tomato cage, but i've been seeing some shorter tomato cages, but i would disbud or even whack the tops off, but this will give you a hedge like appearance. holly

Here is a link that might be useful: well tended garden book amazon