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Florida Gardening

Heat taking toll on some plants - time to trim?

14 years ago

Its only the first of May but my poor Red Shrimp Plant and my Aster vine are both wilting daily in the heat. The RSP blooms in the winter and the AV in the fall. Should I trim them back and keep them small this summer? The AV isn't a clingy vine, more like a shrub, it is not the large leaf aster that spreads like crazy.

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Comments (9)

fighting8r
13 years ago
Wish I knew! Things are dropping like flies here! Summer rain patterns cannot start soon enough!!!
katkin_gw
13 years ago
The aster vine should be in the shade as it can't take full sun. Is yours? The red shimp does better with some afternoon shade as well.

The heat came on fast, my tomato plants already have red spider mites. :o(
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Hi, fellow new-ish gardener! Just wanted to offer a little reassurance since we seem to have quite a bit in common. I am also relatively new to gardening, and many of these kind gardenweb folks can tell you they have offered me plenty of advice and answers over the past couple of years. I live just a tiny bit west of you, also 6b in Southeastern Pennsylvania. We had the same wretchedly cold and snowy winter, 108 degree heat indexes all this week, and are currently getting your same thunderstorm and flash flood watch. I have a bit of a plant collecting disease, so I have a huge range of plants, shrubs, and trees in my yard, even after just a few years of gardening. Many started life on the clearance rack because I don't have an unlimited budget. However, we do seem to have a different approach in terms of plant care. My plants get amended soil, mulch, deadheading and weeding. They get divided when I want more. And this week, I watered them, which was the first watering the ones not in hanging baskets got all year. They are absolutely thriving, even with my benign neglect. Plants mostly want to survive, and my thought process is that any plant that needs such specialized care that it doesn't thrive under my natural conditions was not going to do well in my yard anyway. I can't control the weather, so there is no sense in overstressing it. And I embrace our very cold and very hot temps - I need the cold for spring bulbs and the heat for summer flowers. If my flowers are rewarding me with a yard full of blooms and pollinators, yours will be fine with your much more attentive care. Lose the tarp and let them do their thing!
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That is a lot of rain. I've never experienced that in my garden. We are usually on the other side of that, with not enough rain. Here in the Northeast, we've been watching the news about the middle of the country, I don't know how you stand it. You've had horrible weather the past few months. And all that rain. We have gotten more than usual, but not to that degree. It seems to dissipate somewhat before it reaches us. I'm wondering if you are going to dry out any time soon. I thought you also expect dry weather in the summer, usually. So, I have no suggestions other than, if you have potted plants waiting to go in the ground, maybe you can pull them in the house and put them in a window when it's raining. If there is a particular bed that is soaked, maybe you can put a tarp or plastic over it when it rains and weigh it down with bricks to keep it a little dryer until it stops raining. That's all I can think of. You have my sympathies! I hope you get some dry sunny weather soon!
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sharbear50
13 years ago
I am having to water almost daily. Where is the spring rain/thunder storms. Everyone do a rain dance!
dianekathome
13 years ago
You can mark your calendar to look for the summer rainy season to start about June 15th. Might be different in other parts of the state - I'm in Tampa.
mboston_gw
Original Author
13 years ago
Katkin - well they were in some shade, esp. the aster vine. We had to have the big oak buckhorn trimmed ( nearly everything cut off) because of the mistletoe growing in the tree. It had started to kill it and to save it we had to take drastic measures. So now what were partially shade areas are full sun and there isn't much I can do about it. Luckily my herbs for host plants were in pots and could be moved. The aster vines are too big and the red shrimp plant wasn't doing well in the shade where I had it so I moved it last year. Did great all winter and feed the hummers but now I am tempted to just cut it back for the summer. Doesn't look good as it is.
alexcortez
13 years ago
I trimmed my pink shrimp plants a couple month ago almost to the ground.Now they are about 10/15 inches high look beautiful and healthy with a couple of buds on each.
natives_and_veggies
13 years ago
the summer rains never really stopped down here - I flew in from Atlanta yesterday and saw street flooding in western Dade County! Apparently it rained all weekend which is so weird for mid-May.
Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
13 years ago
I have my Fruit Cocktail Shrimp Plant in deep shade. It struggled in full sun but seems very happy now. Man, I do love the colors on it, too:

Here is a link that might be useful: Google Images of Fruit Cocktail Shrimp Plant
gatormomx2
13 years ago
I have red shrimps in full blazing sun , no irrigation and they are doing great .
They have been there for years so that might be why .
Mine bloom almost all year round except when it is cold .
Maybe these red shrimp are the old common ones that have been around
forever and are not the pretty new hybrids .
The heat and dry conditions = a good reason to have a rain barrel .

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