Looking for some beautiful native plants that are fairly care-free and boast bright colors in late summer and fall? Try growing and , both from the aster family.
These perennials are blooming now and can be a nice alternative to goldenrod and other asters. They do well in our climate and can grow 3 to 5 feet tall with multiple, small and bright blooms. They also make great pollinator plants and deer, rabbits and woodchucks don't like them.
More from 开云体育: Some low-key, late summer flowers that pollinators cannot resist
Boltonia blossoms with white or pink flowers, depending on the variety, does well in wet soils and is even tolerant of clay soils. Helenium is a little more particular as it likes full sun and well-drained soil, but the species variety of it can survive in wet areas. Helenium has yellow, orange or burgundy colored flowers, depending on the variety
Both will slowly spread, with the helenium spreading as a clump, which you can divide every three years. And despite its common name 鈥� 鈥渟neeze weed" 鈥� these flowers do not cause seasonal allergies.
Boltonia will be clump-like but will also have rhizomes, so it will spread a little more aggressively. Because of this, you might want to watch for excessive spread if you have a formal perennial garden. Boltonia might be better in a pollinator garden or a meadow.
Give both boltonia and helenium a try to add to your pallette of perennial colors that bloom in late summer and fall.
More about lilac blight
In the previous episode of All Things Gardening, Charlie answered a listener鈥檚 question about an issue with their lilac leaves. Charlie mentioned that the culprit was probably bacterial blight, due to heavy rain this summer.
Ann Hazelrigg, the plant pathologist at the University of Vermont, wrote in to say it was indeed blight, but probably not the bacterial one: 鈥淚t is lilac leaf blight caused by pseudocercospora sp. I just sent out a press release about it last week because there is so much due to lots of rain."
If you have blight on your lilac from this year鈥檚 heavy rains, clean up the leaves and prune the bush after it's done flowering next year. If you want to do some pruning now, just prune enough to open up the lilac bush a bit to allow for more airflow. And if you see live, green terminal buds at the ends of your lilac branches, don't worry, your lilac will be fine.
The difference between a bacterial blight and fungal one may not be major as far as what you do to clean up the lilac, but it is good to be correct to distinguish between the two! Thanks, Ann, for writing in with that clarification.
How to encourage new canes on old blueberry bushes
Q: I have about 20 blueberry bushes, and I labor over them. I acidify the soil, twice a year if possible. I fertilize during the spring, and I mulch with pine mulch. The bushes give me plenty of blueberries but they produce almost no new canes. I鈥檓 concerned that I鈥檓 not seeing brand new canes from the crown of the blueberry bushes. How can I promote this among my good-but-aging canes? - Gary, via email
A: You're doing a great job to get the blueberries to be tall and productive. Tweaking your pruning techniques should probably help.
Those older branches that are starting to fade will eventually need new growth and new canes to replace them. So, to encourage new canes, and especially to get them coming off the crown or the bottom of the plant, start with the old canes that aren't producing as well.
These are easier to spot in the spring, when you look at the buds. If you have fat buds on those canes, those are flower buds. If they're just small buds, they tend to be leaf buds.
If you cut old canes only part way, the new growth is going to come right off of the stem that you left there. Old canes with mostly leaf buds can be cut all the way back down to the ground. That should stimulate more new growth to come up the base of the plant.
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