Green with envy. I don't have luck with cardinal flowers.

blushing, I'm so photogenic. ;-)

Do you leave the blooms on the joe pye weed all winter, joepyeweed? what about the other natives? do you deadhead? Bob, I just plopped the cardinal flower in there and it grew. What problems do you have with yours?

Bob I emailed you - did you get it?

Deadhead before winter? No, I like the winter interest of the various stalks and seedheads in the winter. A light snow or a heavy frost can make dry seed heads and stalks a real thing of beauty. Plus if you get rid of all the dry, dead plant parts in the fall all you have to look at all winter long is an expanse of white (snow cover) or bare, brown, frozen soil (when there isn't snow cover). No thanks.

Tidy up the gardens in spring after the hardest freezes have passed and before the flush of new spring growth. That works very well in my corner of NY State.

FataMorgana

Hi I leave my grasses and other interesting plants all winter but I was thinking more of deadheading to keep them blooming. Not sure if that works on plants like Joe and Cardinal, and Phlox.

Hi Anita, those are beauties. When you say they are "first year" do you mean that this is the first year in your garden or did you start them from seed?

I've got both of these growing together in a "wetland" area, along with other moisture loving plants. This is kind of a stretch because my lot is upland and well-drained. But I put them in an area a bit lower than the rest of the yard, created by lasagne and enriched with lots of organic matter. Makes it easier to water them when they are grouped together.

Bought the Lobelia cardinalis last fall, and the Joe Pye I transplanted from another garden where it was languishing trying to compete with maple roots. It loves its new location. Here's a pic -

{{gwi:261981}}

Do I dead head? Well that's a tricky question. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

Usually I don't, because the birds will eat the seeds in the winter.

But if I am trying to clean up a bed, if I need to mulch, reorganize, or thin, I will mow everything off to the ground.

My cardinal flower struggles because its in a bed with a bunch of brown eye susans (rudbeckia triloba), which tend to smother out everything in the vicinity. I will probably be trying to cut some of the rudbeckia out, before it goes to seed, to give the lobelia a bit more room.

Very pretty! I planted these this past spring. I bought them from a nursery that specializes in natives, remember my post b and moaning because I bought some non natives there? LOL learned my lesson. I think I will not deadhead until I can't stand it anymore! I'm trying to invite birds, bees and butterflies to my garden, so leaving it as natural as can be, though it's hard for me to resist tidying up!