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Landscape Design Perennials

Ornamental Perenial identification

Daniel Central IN, Zone 6a

5 years ago

I'm working on the landscaping around my patio. There are these perennial plants that are coming up around the patio that I'm trying to identify them to decide if/how they will fit in. Someone I know thought maybe they are peonies but I'm not so sure.

Here are a couple pictures of one plant.

Here is a picture of the other. This one hasn't full turned to it's normal summer color. A lot of that red will fade to green like what is seen in the other pictures.

Featured Answer

Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley

4 years ago

Can you just put a thick layer of mulch. The iris should get thick enough that they wouldn't allow any weeds. And by the way even if you use a heavy ground cover if the weeds are not Dugout they will come up in that. Ask me how I know! Lol! :-)

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Comments (9)

gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
5 years ago
Look like peonies to me. And ones that are struggling to grow through all the weeds and other plants (iris?) surrounding them.
Daniel Central IN, Zone 6a
Original Author
5 years ago
Ok, that's great news. And yes they are surrounded by irises. I want to change it remove the irises and replace them with peonies and a lowish to the ground, ground cover. Probably Geranium Biokovo. I've already transplanted a lot of the irises but there are so many left.

Thanks for the identification confirmation.
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rob333 (zone 7b)
5 years ago
I concur, peonies.

:)
Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley
5 years ago
Peonies and irises, lucky you. What's wrong with leaving some irises there; they look so pretty together.
Daniel Central IN, Zone 6a
Original Author
4 years ago
Thanks, yeah I like the Irises, the problem has been the weeds. It's a long row of Irises and takes hours to weed. I'm hoping the ground cover will help to reduce the weed load. That's a good thought though, maybe I'll leave a few Irisis in the mix and just thin them a bit.
Daniel Central IN, Zone 6a
Original Author
4 years ago
yeah see my thought was to transplant the Irises, mulch, Round up, and then plant the ground cover. There's only two peonies so I figured I could just pull up the weeds around them and be careful not to hit them with the round up.
Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley
4 years ago
I get it. Just be very careful with the Roundup because drift can get on many things that you would not expect and it can also spread if it goes down into the roots through other things. I would definitely leave some irises though because they look so pretty together. Whoever did your garden originally had good taste. Congratulations if it's yoGround cover are youu. What using forget that. What ground cover are you using?
Daniel Central IN, Zone 6a
Original Author
4 years ago
Yeah good point. Roundup shows no mercy.

I'm planning to use Geranium 'Biokovo' as the ground cover. I'm thinking the 6 to 12 inch height should be low enough to allow the peonies enough air/etc.

Here is a pictures of the part I was able to finish so far. I just got the mulch down and you can see the Geranium transplants peaking up through it.

By the way it was a previous gardener who did the landscaping. They did really good with the perennials on the left side of the patio. All sorts of nice stuff, tulips, daffodils, tiger lilies, and irries. Unfortunately, it must have been a maintenance nightmare. We in inherited a weedy perennial garden with cool landscaping bricks all grown up in grass and such. I'm slowly working to reclaim it, maintaining the cool plants and trying to design it to be more maintainable.

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