After the sun finally came out late this afternoon, I went out into the garden to do some trimming and cleanup. The Penstemon spectabilis were looking very ratty and had basically finished their long bloom but some of the stems still had a few lavender-colored flowers on them. The hummingbirds were continuing to visit and I didn’t want to take away their meal, so I didn’t want to cut them off yet, but then I noticed how bad the leaves looked.
On the bottom end of the long stems, the leaves had turned brown and completely dried out and were actually “crackly”. The stems and the leaves that were still green, looked like there was some sort of infestation on them.
I referred to my book on native plant maintenance to see if I could figure out what was wrong. The only thing that I thought it might be, would be some sort of fungus. The book said to cut the stems on the infected plant down almost to the grown and remove any dead leaves.
Ultimately, this is what I did and regretfully so, but I have a feeling that this was the problem and the plant was looking terrible. Now I have a large, bare area in the middle of the garden, that now makes me think of other possibilities.
I dug up a few other plants to create more space and I also removed two Seaside Daisies. They are very pretty with their dainty, pale lavender flowers, but they are very, very invasive. I decided that they had to go, so I removed two of them for the time-being but I have a feeling they will sprout again, as it was difficult to remove all of the network of roots.
Sitting outside, sipping on a glass of wine and viewing the difference in the garden, has set me to thinking about what I may want to do this Fall. I spent some time going through two of my native plant gardening books and getting some ideas.
Here it’s just beginning to be Summer but already I’m dreaming of the native plant sales in the Fall and looking forward to making some changes in the garden.
What will I do?
