Oh yeah. I've had days like that. Hope your little plant grows into a great big beauty!

LOL Yes we all sometimes have days like that! Your delphinium should do well despite the difficult start.

I've been finding a few delphinium seedlings as I've been weeding so am moving them to better locations and hoping for the best. It's a pretty tough plant around here. I don't know how true the color will be from the parent plants tho. I do try to deadhead but have obviously missed enough for them to seed.

Unfortunately, they dug it up again the next night...I re-planted it with red pepper and "Critter Ridder" We'll see what happens tonight.
kay

I've had iffy results with delphs. I currently have a gallon pot with 2-year-old winter sown delphinium on my breezeway (where it's been in full shade the past couple of years) that came through the winter despite my total neglect. My concern now is whether, if I plant it in a full sun bed, it will thrive and produce abundant flowers. Must admit that previous attempts to include these in my butterfly bed have met with limited success which begs the question, are they SO temperamental it's wise to give them a pass rather than obsess about them? While they're undeniably attractive, it's been my experience there are other, more reliable, easy-care perennials with blue flowers that are far more stable. I tend not to stress over things that don't thrive and instead focus on things that do from one season to the next. If it pleases my eye & satisfies the pollinators, it works for me.

After all that surely you will have a beautiful delphinium. How's it doing now?

They left it alone, Sandi so there's hope. A couple in the greenhouse have bloom spikes on them now, which is exciting.

Gardenweed, I understand (meaning, I have read) that the delphiniums are heavy feeders, love manure, and want alkaline soil which means I add lime.

I love the way they look, so will pet them some if I can just get good blooms. I actually have in the past. I am on the edge of their zone, so we'll see what happens this time.
kay

Heavy feeders, eh ? That prolly explains why mine peter out...

I am trying desperately not to laugh because I did not laugh when the chipmunk ate all my tulip bulbs by the back door or when the deer ate the kniphofia, the holly, and a rhododendron down to the roots or when I planted japanese primroses down by the swamp and a woodchuck ate them all or most of all, when the racoons in my attic started fighting in the middle of the night and my wife started hitting the ceiling with a mop handle at three in the morning------------------------------------------------weedy

Yep, heavy feeders. Weedy, sometimes you have to laugh to keep from screaming. go ahead, you earned it.
kay