Rocky corner flowering plants

Yes I have split plants and it’s not complicated. Just put your hand over the top of the pot, with the plant stems between your fingers. Turn the pot upside down and slide the root ball out while supporting it with your hand. If the root ball won't slide out, slip a knife between the soil and pot sides to loosen it.

Shake the soil from the roots gently until most of it is removed and you can see the roots.

Gently tease apart and untangle the root ball with your fingers to loosen the roots to the size of plants you require. Each section should contain both roots and healthy stems or shoots after they are divided.

 

Ok cool, that sounds straightforward enough. I'm comfortable handling plants. Once divided do they need to be repotted in their own new pots to establish their roots again or can I put them straight into their final planter with the other plants? Thanks.

 

You can either put the new plants directly into the planter of compost or put them into pots and plant them at a later date.

Recently divided plants also require regular watering but usually don't need fertilizer until they begin to put on healthy new growth.

 

Hi everyone.

Well I have to say, my little 1m square rockery (maybe ever smaller) has been a total success. I'm still meaning to post a pic at some point, it might not look like much but it's really tidied up that end of the bed.

Less successful have been many of the main bedding plants. We've had a real slug problem which I've been trying to hammer with beer traps and now Nematodes, but the marigolds? Forget it. Most of the violas have bitten the dust as well.

The in-laws thankfully brought us a load more plants to put out, so I've potted them and just set them on the gravel in the spots where former plants have died, but we still have a few spaces to fill. (our raised bed has weed issues so we put down a membrane on top of the earth, cut holes and planted through, and gravelled between the plants.)

So what we're looking for now - if you'd like to make some suggestions:

Pet (cat) friendly, so non toxic plants that will give us a lot of summer colour as late as possible, hardy and happy in pots - colour wise, orange - apricot & yellow only (we're a bit snowed under with blues pinks & purples)

Any ideas? We'll be looking at 23cm terracotta bowl planters.

Cheers.

 

Hiya nightofjoy
How about geum Totally Tangerine? .....orange flowers for months, easy, slug free and virtually evergreen. Orange echinaceas are available.....Marmalade is a nice double but single orange varieties too
Check out argyranthemums......yellow, white, pink and purple. Relatively hardy and flower for months. Osteospermum Voltage Yellow is a half hardy to hardy variety with yellow flowers all summer.
Agastaches would grow well in pots ...good drainage is important. The Kudos varieties like Mandarin (orange), Coral and Yellow are compact, floriferous and have scented foliage.
Foliage colour too? Heucheras are fabulous pot plants with orange, yellow, and red/black foliage. Hostas and grasses come in all sorts of colours and make for a great contrast with flowers
Your violas have probably been eaten by slugs.....cut the plants back and go out at night with a torch and pick them off.

 

Yes! Yes! All suggestions welcome... they need to be easily available too... like B&Q, Homebase & Wyevals

 

My little rockery doing so well you can't even see the rocks anymore lol it does look very tidy though

 

Brand new question, seeing as I'm getting most of my advice from this page now!

Deadheading. We have a couple of Senetti plants, the bright purple ones, and a similar yellow plant ( possibly not Senetti though) and all of the blooms have died off already.

Also, our beloved Erysimum wallflowers, two out of four have also lost their flowers. They're large specimens, covered in seed pods - but the blooms have vanished. They don't die on the plant like other flowers, they just seem to vanish.

I've deadheaded the Senetti.... thinking about cutting back the wallflowers.

At this point is deadheading just maintenance or is there a chance that cutting back and dead heading might result in a further bloom this summer?

It feels very early i the year to be giving up on these plants blooming....

Thanks.

 

Nightofjoy

I have experimented with senetti trying to get them to flower well into summer and beyond. From not allowing them to flower in spring to cutting hard back, to repotting.
They are essentially cool weather plants, linked (I think) to cineraria and I found that although they did regrow and reflower in summer they did so at comparatively poor level to what we see in the spring. Flowers were short and sparse. I did not produce good plants either for the following year. So, for me enjoy senetti for their early season but then discard.

You can keep wallflowers after they have flowered this year.....cut back flowered shoots, remove seed pods.....and let them be. They will be bigger plants, earlier too, but fresh plants every year are the best. The perennial Bowles Mauve is reliably (short term) perennial and deadheading will help prolong flowering throughout summer

Thus, No I dont think you will have more flowers on the biennial wallflowers if you cut back now....flowers will re occur in late winter/early spring
For me, enjoy wallflowers in their season and replace them with genuine summer annual...cosmos??..

 

Aaaaaand another question. In a small yard outside of our flat's kitchen window, we planted a ceanothus into a massive pot. It bloomed last year when we bought it, then again this year but only for a very short time, and now it's completely died. I might take it out of the pot and plant it in the communal gardens - in case it decides to make a come back, but the question now it, what can I replace it with?

The idea was in the first place to have something which can be seen from the kitchen window that would give us a bit of colour in an otherwise bare bit of yard.

So we'd be looking for something easy care, possibly orange/yellow flowers, for a change, that will bloom into late summer/autumn....

It's a really massive pot - about the size of a spacehopper....

*Also - as with all the stuff I ask about - non-toxic/pet friendly please

 

Nightofjoy
Is it in the sun? Warm spot?
For a pot that size, I would plant a shrub plus bulbs plus plants to cascade over the sides. However, plant suggestions are determined by its positio....in the sun or in shade!

 

Hi.

It's actually in a shaded bit, as it's a sunken sub-basement yard. We could move it to the opposite corner where it would get the sun, but then we couldn't see it from the kitchen window.

We're actually now in a conversation whether to bother or not, and maybe to pull up the pot and put it elsewhere. The problem is, there's a chest-hight railing all around this little yard, no gate (totally boxed in by the railings), and then a drop down onto concrete of about 4 - 5 feet. I'm always a bit worried when climbing over, as a fall of 8 - 9 feet in total onto concrete could be fatal.

Now discussing bringing the pot up for good and putting it in our main patio container garden, so would be in full sun for the morning until early lunchtime then in light shade/indirect sun for the rest of the day.

If we want something for colour to be seen out of the kitchen window, I'll have to hang a tough or basket from the railing... might be a bit late to establish something now though.....