What are your best performing plants?

[Kay Young]

Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2004 3:18 pm Post subject: What are your best performing plants?

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Hi everybody,
While lusting for plants that are not current residents of my garden, and while considering how little room I have for new plants, I hit upon the idea of tapping the best source around for help culling the list: YOU!

I would love for you to share the names of a few plants that are your best performers...you know, those plants that give so much and ask for very little in return. The plants that can stand our climate and weather conditions, don't need much coddling and are not special delicacies on the bug buffet.

I'll give you a few of my favorites, to get started:

pink skullcap
four nerve daisy
New Dawn climbing rose
Valentine rose
Belinda's Dream rose
canna Pretoria and canna Tropicana
Sunny Border Blue veronica

Hope to hear from you,
K

[dragonfly]

Salvia (just plain blue bedder, and Salvia greggi)
Lantana (the old-fashioned one with multi-color flowers)
Blue Mistflower
Yarrow (the native white, and the multi-color pink)
Gomphrena
Rosemary (makes a beautiful shrub)
sedum (several different species)
Nicotiana
Butterfly bush
Zexmania (think that's how it's spelled)
Verbena

[Kay Young]

Dragonfly,
Thanks for your list. My yard receives mostly partial sun/shade. Too much noon to afternoon sun for shade plants but not enough hours of sun for the sun lovers. For example, salvia greggii does ok, but gets a little leggy and doesn't bloom as prolifically as it could. Would you think any of your good performers would accept my conditions?
Thanks,
K

[pridgeon]

One of the plants Dragonfly mentioned was rosemary - I have a very big rosemary bush growing in mostly shade. While it very seldom blooms it grows great and is healthy. And the one that grows in full sun is good too, so your area that gets noon sun should be fine for a rosemary bush.

[pfpmod]

I live near Denton ................... has anyone tried planting any of these ... if so ...where ... sun, shade? half day of one or the other ... etc

society garlic - pink flower
golden groundsel - yellow
autumn lilly hosta .... white

have found articles in southern living about these ... but could not tell where the author was writing about ............... the south can be somewhat diverse in climates :-)

thanks

[drchelo]

I don't know if I have any shady spots in my garden...and I have mostly all Dallas black clay dirt..but some of my favorites are santolina, scabiosa, creeping phlox, "butter and eggs", and my favorite evergreen hardy groundcover is trailing germander.

[dcluck]

Hey! Great topic! I'm at the stage now of planning our landscaping. We inherited a landscaping mess with this house and I'm just now at the stage where I'll be making choices, buying and planting over the next few weeks.

~Dave

[Kay Young]

I have had very good luck with society garlic, both the green and variegated varieties, but I think the green one is more prolific. It doesn't seem to be too picky as long as it gets sun at least part of the day. I planted it close to my roses because I read that its scent confuses the aphids. I don't know about that, but I like it anyway.

[Kathe Kitchens]

Some of my favorites are lamb's ear, marigolds, dianthus, artemesia, phlox, verbena, lavender, thyme, oregano, liriope, roses, turk's cap, alyssum, salvia gregii, lantanas, chinese fringe plants, butterfly bushes, hyacinth bean vine and rosemary.

All of these should do well under conditions you describe. I have an area in my back yard that gets sun for only 4 hours per day and grows most of these plants just fine. The sticky clay can be made welcoming with compost and cornmeal watered in with diluted molasses. If you will give the new plants a good watering with some seaweed solution when you plant them they will establish more quickly. Then water them well again the next day. After that you should be able to go to normal watering conditions, every week, to keep them happy and healthy.

Don't forget whatever you plant will do vastly better here if you mulch the bare soil around them. It is one of the most important elements of gardening in clay soil. It regulates the temperature of the soil, reduces evaporation and compaction, and suppresses weed germination.

Good luck! YOu are going to have so much fun! :lol:

Kathe

[Kathe Kitchens]

Let me add a piece of advice someone shared with me:

Don't forget to use white flowers in your landscape, because they bring out and highlight the colors. Be aware of the different foliage colors and textures and use them to create a diversity in your garden or to maintain continuity. They can make a tremendous impact!

Also, be aware of how high and wide your plants grow; when you first complete your new landscape your plants should appear to be too far apart. If they are young plants you may be setting yourself up for future crowding and fungus and moisture problems as they grow together.

Hope this is helpful to you...it worked wonders for me.

Kathe

[Kay Young]

Several of you mentioned rosemary. I love rosemary and have several plants, but I was wondering if you ever prune yours. Many of my woody perennials get trimmed way back in late winter/early spring, but a "test pruning" of rosemary seemed to indicate that no new growth occured at the pruning site.

Speaking of perennial pruning, it appears to be very difficult to find information on specific plant pruning ineeds. Anyone know of a good source?

[Billusa99]

My star for noon to afternoon sun and shade/partial shade the rest of the time is Texas Star Hibiscus... a perenial. We love the huge red flowers!

[Sleeper]

In addition to the ones already listed, these are the plants we have been successful with:

Heirloom Day Lilies
Heirloom Spider Lilies
Heirloom Garlic
Hydrangea
Hasta
Narcissis
Carolina Jasmine
Silverado Sage
Lamb's Ear
Several types of chrysanthamums
(pardon the spelling errors)

We have just planted
English and Provance Lavendar
Tuscan Blue Rosemary
Yarrow

[Kay Young]

Kathe,
I bought some mystery dianthus about 15 months ago and they have been blooming cherry red flowers ever since. They have green rather than grey green foliage. The merchant wasn't sure if they were annuals or biennials, but whatever, they are great. I wish I knew what they were so I could buy more. My previous experience with dianthus was Bath's Pink and it wasn't nearly so good a performer.

I have a year old butterfly bush and I don't know whether I should cut it back to encourage bushiness. It is sort of leggy and whippy in the wind, and about 4 feet tall. Since we had such a mild winter, it has no die back.

Do you cut back your artemesia and/or rosemary? I do cut back my artemesia to about 12 inches, and it seems to profit from the experience. It starts afresh without all the old man grey hair.

K

[Connie Tassin]

Kay, I have Hill's Hardy Rosemary, and it gets big! So I prune it each year. It takes months to come back out, and in the meantime, you can see all of the cut limb ends. But it does come back.