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When Good Flowers Get Out of Control
Every garden has a few thugs. Nice flowers with handsome blooms that somehow get too rambunctious and take over. They can choke out other plants as easily as weeds. That happens, in part, because we are reluctant to pull them. In general, they have roots that extend and send up new shoots. Let’s look at a few.
I recently pulled up a lot of beebalm (Monarda didyma). That was tough for me to do because it is such a great flower, and it has not yet bloomed. But it had run roughshod over most of one large flower bed, and it had to be brought under control.
Beebalm
Beebalm likes morning sunshine and soil that does not dry out completely. There is also a native beebalm (Monarda fistulosa) that I’ve seen wild in the Mid-west and Rockies. It is shorter, and has pale lavender colored flowers. It does well in hot, dry locations. Our garden beebalm comes in six or more colors from purple to pink – but it does best out of the hot afternoon sun. It sends roots up to a couple of feet, and because it is tall, it can shade-out and out-compete other flowers. As the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland pronounce, “Off with her head!”
For removing any plant with extended roots, I like the CobraHead weeder. It is curved like a single steel finger, and can be used to loosen the soil under and around weed (or thug-like flower) roots. I gently tug on the flower stem, while loosening the roots. Beebalm, like most plants with long roots, has nodules in the roots. If you break the root, new plant stems will grow from a nodule.
Another difficult plant is Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana). What a funny name for a plant that is not the slightest bit obedient. Its roots are problematic because they break so easily, more so than any other plant I know. They send down a tap root that breaks off, even if you have loosened the soil. And it can take over a garden in just a season! I no longer allow it in any of my garden beds, but have moved some to the edge of the woods where deep shade on one side, and lawn on the other, can control it.
All that said, Obedient Plant is a lovely cut flower. It has strong square stems (like mints), and for me it grows up to 5 or 6 feet tall. It lasts well in a vase, with pink or white spikes of many small flowers. I had it in full sun in rich, moist soil, and it ran like crazy!
There is a form of Obedient Plant that has green and white leaves, and it is much more obedient! Like any variegated-leafed plant, this one has less vigor because it has less green chlorophyll to make the food that feeds the roots and flowers. I grow this one, though I find I often need to stake it to keep the flower stems from flopping over.
Teasel
Another potential thug that I allow in my garden is common teasel (Dipsacus fullonum). Hated by corn farmers in the Mid-West as an invasive weed, it spreads by seed, not root. It’s a biennial. The first year of its life it does not flower, but produces distinctive long, light-green leaves (often with little wart-like bumps) in a low rosette. The second year it sends up a flower stalk up to 6 or 7 feet tall, and produces a seed head that is like a piece of sculpture.
Individual teasel flowers are very small and a light purple, but they don’t all appear at once. Bees love them! The seed head is very showy, a 2-inch spiny extravaganza that looks great in a vase as a cut flower, or later as a dried flower. I wear leather gloves to pick it, and then rub off the spines on the stems for use in vases.
The key to controlling teasel is to learn to recognize and pull the first year plants. That, and picking the stems with flowers before they distribute seeds. I suppose I will get e-mail telling me how stupid I am for allowing this thug in my garden, but I have been able to keep it under control – and I introduced it 20 years ago! Don’t introduce it to your garden unless you can pay attention to it, and keep it controlled.
Sometimes we make mistakes. We see a well-controlled plant blooming in its pot and buy one (or more). We put it in the garden, and only later decide that it has some bad qualities. It has taken me a long time to realize that it’s great to recognize that a plant is not for me, and then be able to dig it up and toss it into the compost.
I recently needed space for a new plant, and decided that I did not like my Siberian Bugloss (Brunnera siberica). I bought it because I have another species of Bugloss (B. macrophylla) that I like a lot. ‘Jack Frost’ Brunnera has lovely small blue flowers in spring and low green and white leaves all summer. But the Siberian relative does not stay in a compact mound, and is a bit floppy. So I yanked it in favor of something new.
Call me fickle if you wish, but I have a limited amount of garden space, and I reserve the right to remove any plant that does not, at least occasionally, cause me to say with glee, “I love that plant!”
Read Henry’s twice-weekly blog posts at https://dailyuv.com/
Rambunctious Plants
“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.” That quote is from French journalist, novelist and critic Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, who lived from 1808 to 1890.
He’s right of course, being thankful for the good attributes of flowers is important even though some also have some problematic traits. It would be easy to ban every flower that misbehaves. On this cold March day I can think of several problem-child flowers that I love.
Obedient Plant
Obedient Flower (Physostegia virginiana) certainly does not live up to its name: it is not at all well-behaved. I started growing it in a sunny spot with rich, moist soil. It grew to be 3 to 6 feet tall with square stems and lovely pink flowers in mid-July. But soon it wandered, taking over walkways and neighboring beds. It got into my rhubarb patch. It spread by root, and even a fragment left in the soil would come back.
Ultimately I hired a diligent young man who spent 10 hours or more just digging it out. “Take no prisoners,” I said. He did a good job by loosening the soil deeply with a garden fork, and then carefully teasing out the roots with a CobraHead weeder. The CobraHead is a single-tined hand tool that is fabulous for getting out roots.
Of course, given the beauty of the flowers and the fact that they have great vase-life, I had to re-plant a few of these non-obedient flowers. Where? Along the edges of a field that is partially shaded by willows, in an area with goldenrod and other tall, aggressive plants. I didn’t want to make life too easy for these beauties, and that worked. I can go pick stems for arrangements, and if the flowers want to spread I can mow them.
Campanula glomerata
Another vigorous spreader is the Clustered Bellflower (Campanula glomerata). This is a lovely globe-shaped cluster of blossoms that are a bluish-purple on stems about 18 inches tall. Like obedient plant, it spreads by root and can be invasive if planted in full sun with rich moist soil. It showed up in my garden without ever being purchased. Some scrap of root must have come in with another flower, perhaps a gift plant.
But Clustered Bellflower is much easier to control than Obedient Plant. It digs easily, and I found that by putting it in drier, shadier locations made it a very nice addition to the garden.
Joe Pye Weed
Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum) is a native wildflower that grows alongside my brook, flowering in August. I like the flowers even though they don’t last long in a vase. It’s great food for bees and butterflies. It can reach 6 feet or more tall and has many small pink-purple flowers growing in clusters. A related species, E. maculatum, is said to be a bit shorter and tidier, especially a named cultivar, ‘Gateway’. I bought Gateway and liked it – for several years. Then, like many of us, it spread in middle age. A tidy 2-foot wide plant became a messy 5-foot wide plant, tall and floppy. It had to go.
Digging up my Joe Pye was a real test of my mettle. No helper available, I went at it with a shovel and fork. It didn’t even wiggle. So I cut off all stems and went at the roots with a pick-ax. Three hours later I had removed the roots. Later I learned about a cultivar called ‘Little Joe’ of a related species, E. dubium. This one, I read, is a really nice size, maybe two feet tall and wide. But elsewhere I see it listed as 3 to 4 feet tall. Hmm. I need to be wary about these flowers. But I bet if I see one for sale, I’ll try it. Silly me.
Once I decided to try planting a true bamboo plant. I had been warned that bamboo can take over a garden, spreading by root. So to prevent that, I planted the bamboo in a 50-gallon plastic drum. First I drilled drainage holes in the bottom and buried it, leaving a 3 inch lip above the soil line. I filled it with great soil and compost. Silly me. The bamboo barely survived the first winter, and eventually succumbed. But better safe than sorry.
There are many plants that have been introduced to the United States with good intentions (or by mistake), only to turn invasive. Purple loosestrife is one, Japanese Knotweed is another. Neither is controlled by any native American insect pests and they spread like wildfire. Both have root systems that are daunting, and a mature purple loosestrife plant, I have read, can produce a million seeds or more. And those seeds last for years.
Fortunately, purple loosestrife, which can take over marshes and wet areas, is now being controlled by a beetle imported from Europe where the loosestrife comes from. The beetle was tested before being released and it was found to be species specific: it won’t eat your peonies or your tomatoes.
So what have I learned from my experiences? Don’t give rambunctious plants what they want. Give them less sun, less water and poor soil. Those are better places for overly enthusiastic plants. But also enjoy what they have to offer – and don’t focus on the thorns.
Reach Henry at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or henry.homeyer@comcast.net. Read his twice-weekly blog with lots of photos at https://dailyuv.com/gardeningg