Fatalities - not too bad!

16 years ago

I thought this would be a really bad year for losses - when the temperatures were at their coldest, my plants had no snow cover. So I figured I'd be bawling my eyes out right about now.

It seems I lost my Dicentra formosa this winter. It was a really nice big plant and I've had it for several years :-(. I also lost my Eryngium, but that's not bothering me so much - now I can justify getting one of those new really blue ones. The squirrels killed about half of my Sempervivums (including my beautiful red one - grrr...), and they also killed almost all of my brown Ajuga. Bloody beasts!!!

A couple of things have yet to show signs of life above ground, but when I popped the plants out of their pots, the roots look good - they're still waking up.

My new prizes from last year are all up and growing nicely. The Astilboides tabularis looks to have a couple of new big shoots emerging and my 'Brunette' Actaea/cimicifuga is obviously bigger.

And I found a very strange volunteer today. I have tried to overwinter lemon balm a good half a dozen times and never once have I succeeded. I didn't even try to protect my big pot of it this winter, and of course it died. So what do I see peeking out of a pot of Aquilegia? A toonie sized patch of lemon balm!

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (12)

greylady_gardener
16 years ago
Bonnie, I usually have lemon balm seedlings coming up everywhere! It is a good reseeder! :)
What do I see coming up in several pots out the back??---columbine! Tiny little seedlings coming up in pots that were just sitting in a group. It will be interesting to see what colour they are.
It seems I lost my hellebore. I just got it last year! :(
I am hoping that it is too soon to tell about some of the other things that aren't showing yet.
gg
cookie8
16 years ago
Not sure what I lost because I can't distinguish between a weed and a plant! I hope I find someone in the neighbourhood who can help me out.
I may have lost a PeeGee Hydrangea I transplanted last fall. I snapped a twig and it sounded pretty crisp!
Related Discussions
Water Hyacinth Fatal to Koi?! Taro too?
Q
Comments (9)
I realise this thread is old but would like to tell you about my experience on the weekend with water iris and koi. We cleaned out our very large pond on the weekend. Everything was removed, all 14 koi safely transferred into another container, all water iris's were broken up, repotted with new soil mix (from our supplier) and cut back for new growth to start everything off fresh again. Water was balanced and left to circulate through the filter for 2 hours. Fish returned to their home to explore. Next morning all 14 fish were dead :( on googling I have now found that the sap from the water iris is toxic. Very hard and expensive lesson for us to learn. I have spoken to our koi supplier and they were unaware of this problem. While I had bought 5 new fish on Sunday the other 9 were large koi that we had had for years :(
...See More
Too Hot Too Soon.....Bad for the Garden
Q
Comments (6)
Dawn, I too often wonder how our ancestors made it. My kids were the first of our family's generation to have been born in Oklahoma, but my husband's parents were born here and raised their families here. His mother told me stories about how hard life was. She said when a grass fire got started, all you could really do was just stand there and watch it consume everything in its path. With only a well to draw water from, all they could do was dig trenches and try to beat it down with gunny sacks. They lost everything they had many times, to fire and flood. Miraculously, they were never hit by a tornado. Can you imagine how discouraging it must've been to live like that? Some of the pictures I have of my husband's grandparents show the entire family all lined up in front of a little wood shanty. DH's grandfather died of gangrene after having a leg accidentally cut off in a farming accident, leaving his grandmother with nine children. The eldest was DH's dad, who was about 18, and the youngest was less than a year old. I remember not having air-conditioning -- or even fans! When I was little, we lived in a two storey old farmhouse not far from Humboldt, KS. We had a one-room schoolhouse about a mile away, but my siblings that went to high school rode the bus to Elsmore. When my mother would describe where we lived, she would say it was "out by Leanna". I never knew where Leanna was. Anyway, in the summer the house would get incredibly hot. We spent a lot of time on the front porch then, but there was still cooking and canning to do, and that had to be done inside. At night, we would spread "pallets" on the ground and sleep under the stars. It was OK, but I always hated it because the bugs would crawl on my ears and I was deathly afraid they were going to go inside my ears and get inside my brain! Funny what a 6-year-old will think. I would panic and start to scream and my poor mom would take me inside and put me to bed there. I remember every now and then turning the pillow over because it would be cooler on the under side. We had rain all night last night, and early, early in the morning yesterday. Last night it just poured. It thundered so hard it shook the house. It's almost 9:00 and it's still raining off and on. It's getting to the point where I don't even look to see how many inches we have, and I almost don't even want to talk about it anymore. I sure wish we could send you some of this. HWY 123 is closed now. It always floods, as the ditches aren't very deep and it's very close to the Caney River. If it keeps on like this, little Coon Creek will jump its banks and then HWY 75 will be closed, too, which will cut us off from Bartlesville. That doesn't happen very often, or for very long, though. There are a couple of other ways to get to Bartlesville from here using country roads, but they usually close off before HWY 75 does. According to Mesonet, we have 60% chance of rain for the remainder of the day and 50% chance tomorrow. I guess I won't be digging in the garden much today.
...See More
Made good progress this season. Too bad its over
Q
Comments (3)
I know right? Too bad it is over although mines are going to stay out it seems for yet another couple of weeks. Weird. No frost yet, nothing in the thirties and it's almost November, I see none within the rest of this month. Crazy but excited
...See More
Bad tile job? Am I too picky?
Q
Comments (11)
Perfection is a difficult master but that disclaimer shoudn't be used as an excuse for atrocious work. There are old houses where the corners aren't square and the walls aren't plumb but if you can't keep rows reasonably level, the surface isn't suitable for tile. My pet peeve is installers who don't raise any concerns with preexisting conditions but then want to use issues with those previously suitable surfaces as an excuse when called out on horrible quality work. Then they make it even worse with contrasting grout. These guys shoudn't be installing any type of material if they don't get the basics of surfaces should be flat, reveals consistent, edges matching, and layout balanced. Not every job calls for top quality craftsmanship but there's no excuse for results like this.
...See More
bonniepunch
Original Author
16 years ago
GG - there's something about lemon balm and me. I've never even had it reseed. I don't know why I've been cursed, but that's one of the few plants I reliable can't overwinter!

cookie - when did you transplant it? Moving or dividing anything in the fall can be risky if you do it too late. It causes a growth spurt, and if this happens when the plant should be winding down and getting ready for winter, then there is a much higher chance the plant won't make it. But don't give up yet - you may just have some dieback of the branch tips.

As to how to tell the difference between a weed and a plant - sometimes it's not so easy!! Partly you just learn what specific plants look like as they emerge, but also if you kept weeds to a minimum last year, the new weeds will be much more spindly and fragile looking than your established plants.

BP
cookie8
16 years ago
Thanks Bonnie. My neighbour came over to help identify alot of things for me. A lot more weeds than I was expecting so I have a busy weekend planned. She also mentioned the hydrangea buds later so be patient, so I will be. It was probably transplanted in mid-late September.
sunita_fleuriste
16 years ago
I lost my Magnolia :-( It was small...only about 18 inches but looked good. I transplanted it late in the season...big mistake I guess.
Plus one of my roses looks dead...funny thing is...the one that was there last year didn t overwinter either...haha maybe that spot s cursed!
Everything else is coming up fine...I m surprised actually...it was a hard winter!

S
cannazone5
16 years ago
I splurged & planted dozens of Icicle/Polar Pansies last fall and about half of them are nowhere to be found! Not sure if they shriveled and decomposed under the weight of all the snow I shoveled or if a squirrel or rabbit had a feast (if they like pansies, that is).

I thought I'd lose my new Japanese Maple that I planted early summer because the burlap collapsed early in the winter and I never replaced it (I hate the cold!) but BUDS ARE SHOWING!!!!

I stupidly moved a hydrangea on the hottest day of the year and it then lost all its leaves and looked completely dead amidst all the color of my annuals. My husband argued that we should dig it out and replace it but I refused. I was determined to give my baby one more spring to show me it was a survivor. YEAH!!!!! It's got buds too!
tiffy_z5_6_can
16 years ago
I lost 2 out of 5 Blue Poppies. :O( I've been crying in a fetal position for the lat few days... If my winter sown ones from this year germinate, I'll come back to life...
tiffy_z5_6_can
16 years ago
I've come back to life!!!! There's major germination in one out of six containers of the Meconopsis Benotifolia. Hooray!!
greylady_gardener
16 years ago
Good to hear, Tiffy! :)Sure hated to think of you laying there crying!
gg
bonniepunch
Original Author
15 years ago
Good for the blue poppies!

It seems I was a bit premature on my Astilboides - this morning I discovered the damn squirrels had chewed off the three shoots that were emerging. I was so mad I could barely see! It's my own fault too - I had been worried about the squirrels damaging them, so I had been covering them at night, and I *forgot* last night! Aaaaauuuuuggggghhhh!!!

BP
tiffy_z5_6_can
15 years ago
gg, Actually I felt so sad I winter sowed 40 more containers of annuals that day. :O)

BP, Probably jinxing myself here, but the squirrels have never done anything I've noticed to my gardens. I do have feeders out for the birds which the squirrels lunch at and think that makes a difference. The population of them here is not massive and seems to stay at a good level with the help of a couple of hawks in the neighbourhood.

If they did start at my plants I don't know what I would do. I'd be madder than he!! Hope your Astiboides comes back.
bonniepunch
Original Author
15 years ago
Tiffy - the squirrels here are sooooo different from the little red guys you have back in NS. In this area we have grey squirrels - they're huge compared to the red ones, they're so much more aggressive and they have two litters a year instead of the one litter the red ones have. They have adapted and thrive in cities (the red ones do not tolerate their habitat being destroyed and live in cities only in small numbers) and their numbers get so dense they are starving and desperate - they'll eat anything that doesn't bite back. I hate them!! In every area they have been introduced to, they displace the red squirrels and take over. Stupid beasts!

I'm sure my Astilboides will come back, but the first leaves to emerge would have been the biggest. So it probably won't be as neat as it could have been, and I'll have to rig up a protective cover for the other leaves as they emerge. I have had success keeping the tree rats from eating my alliums and lilies with a paste made from vaseline and blood meal, so I'll try it on the Astilboides as well.

I hope you get more germination of your poppies! One out of six is better than none, but it would be nicer to have more since they seem to have a high fatality rate!

BP

Fatalities - not too bad!

Comments (12)

greylady_gardener

cookie8

Related Discussions

bonniepunch
Original Author

cookie8

sunita_fleuriste

cannazone5

tiffy_z5_6_can

tiffy_z5_6_can

greylady_gardener

bonniepunch
Original Author

tiffy_z5_6_can

bonniepunch
Original Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Fatalities - not too bad!

Comments (12)

Related Discussions

bonniepunchOriginal Author

bonniepunchOriginal Author

bonniepunchOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

bonniepunch
Original Author

bonniepunch
Original Author

bonniepunch
Original Author