Mine look really rough right now too. The soil here is dry almost a foot deep. I don't know how anything is surviving, yet alone blooming. But it is.

I love the repeating purple queen. I've got new melas from your original plants this year. And the Helianthus you gave me is about 5' tall. I didn't cut them all back, just to see what would happen.

Rain possible tonight. We might even get some more this weekend. I sure hope so. It's been 10 days in the upper 90s now. I've stopped watering. It either survives, or I divide and fill the empty spaces next year with the things that made it.

Tom... Those purple queens (and many, many more not shown) I dig up and pot up and put in the garage. Yes, they are perennials and are supposed to come back but instead here's what I do:

After taking them out of the pots in the spring (after last frost date), they continue to grow (they never died in the pot). They become so tall that I break off the long stems (the plants you see there have been broken off) take about 7/8 stems and pot them up.

THey look beautiful in a pot and I am ready with those for winter storing. Again, I wait until the ones in the ground are tall, break off the stems there and pot up again.

Around November (before first frost), I dig out the purple queens and pot those up.

Why do I do that with perennials? Because someone told me that if we have a bad winter, they don't come back, plus.... when I plant mine out they are already huge!

Hope I have enough energy this November to continue this because I love those plants.

Carrie

Carrie,

I need to know what those dark purple plants are in the 2nd and third pic. Are they annuals? I'm hoping it's perennial. :)

Nice ruds! :D

Thanks!

Yes, perennials in the pics - purple queens - but actually I dig them up and save them in the garage over the winter "just in case" it's a cold and damp winter and they don't make it. Some here say that they ALWAYS come back, but when I save them in the unheated garage they never die down and so when I plant them out in the spring, they are already up and big! (It's a secret... heh heh..neighbors wondering "mine haven't come up yet..heh heh)

carrie

They're like cannas then! How do they look when you dig them up? Does it have rhizomes?

Neil - I have never dug up cannas and they have come back... I dig these purple queens out and pot them up only because I don't want to wait until May for them to emerge.

Mine are planted out first week in April and look big to start - that's why I pot them up and garage them, but there is no need to really do it...

I guess I am a bit worried that ONE winter would be SO bad that something would happen to them - so I don't take that chance. Silly....but true.

Carrie

Token,
Just out of curiosity, is there anything in your gardens you would water?

I water my brugmansias, squash, tomatoes, and anything recently transplanted. The rest manages or it dies. I'm going to be redoing the entire perennial bed this winter using 5-10 plants. Echinacea, rudbeckia, coreopsis, agastache, sedums, and some self seeding annuals like salvia subrotunda, melampodiums, and zinnias. A few hardy hibiscus will remain, as will many of the daylilies I have. The heat affects the leaves, but they still bloom.