Tenacious Tip Tuesday - Use Low Maintenance Plants

The first year I grew bee balm (Monarda didyma), a variety called ‘Raspberry Wine’, it was a fantastic success. The tiny, little plant I started with expanded politely to about a foot and a half across and stood 3 feet tall, with many lovely flowers. The leaves had a minty, spicy scent and not a speck of disease. It was a hummingbird magnet, too; every evening we could count on watching a couple of the little birds squabbling for control of the flowers.

The following year, the polite expansion continued, a little less politely. By the end of that season, the patch was four feet across and barreling over a rose and 2 daylilies. The flower stalks had grown to 4 feet tall and the nightly battle among the hummingbirds had taken on tones of a World War 2 dogfight. Scrappy little critters, those hummingbirds.

The third year began my annual battle to keep bee balm under control. After a few experiments, I decided the only way to control it was to lift the entire patch every other year first thing in the spring, cut out the old, woody growth and replant a piece from the expanding edge. This got to be a somewhat brutal affair as there was a great deal of viable plant material left at the end. I tried giving the pieces away for a while but people began to avoid me; you’d have thought I was giving away excess summer squash. I wouldn’t get around to that till August.

What I couldn’t give away got composted or at least hit the pile. There’s now a lovely patch of bee balm surrounding the compost bins and Brian mows it down when it gets too rowdy.

Every gardener has their own way of dealing with thugs. Some enjoy their rampancy, giving them their own space to pillage, some limit them to pots, and others refuse to grow them at all. A lot depends on the particular plant, too. Is it worth the effort to accommodate? Is it a major thug or just a minor hooligan? If you do let it loose in the garden, can you get it out again without high explosives?

Garden Mayhem!

I have moved many plants in anticipation of some new hardscaping (a patio and 2 pergolas).  This month the real mayhem commences as I clear out plants which are too much work, too fussy or just plain boring. Which plants stay and which ones go will be determined by several factors and, of course, the whim of the gardener.

The first ones to go will be those that rampage merrily through the garden, indifferent to the suffering of other, less enthusiastic vegetation and require entirely too much work to keep them from taking over. I don’t mind perennials that spread slowly for many years and then need dividing, like daylilies (Hemerocallis ssp.) or iris, but others can become genuine thugs. Reining in the herds of bee balm (Monarda didyma) will be the first order of business. This genus is in the mint family and spreads by underground runners; not as aggressively as true mints, like peppermint or spearmint, but too much for their current position. They have wonderful, strange flowers that are adored by hummingbirds and butterflies; the leaves smell like Earl Grey tea.



Monarda 'Jacob Kline'

 Several varieties, including ‘Jacob Kline’, a bright red, ‘Blue Stocking’, shorter and purple, and ‘Coral Reef’, a medium sized pink, will all be relocated to wilder areas of the garden where they can roam free and a few will be given away with proper warnings. While I adore their flowers, and these 3 are all wonderfully healthy, they have strangled 3 roses and a daylily and are threatening several iris. Fling! Out they go!

The flocks of garden phlox (Phlox paniculata) will also be thinned out this year. I have 4 large clumps of the tall, white phlox, ‘David’; they are drop-dead gorgeous, smell like heaven and bloom for almost two months. The leaves rarely get powdery mildew, a common fault in many otherwise beautiful phlox. Three of them are getting the shovel, along with a few other varieties. Why, you may ask?