A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2003 Spider Flower (Cleome)

The spider flowers planted in the Chicago gardens this year are annuals - I realize this - but will ask some questions that would imply that I think they are perennials. I love them. They were my grandmother's favorite. I would like to grow them next year. I remember my grandma giving me seeds straight from the plant. I was not old enough to notice if she resowed the seeds every year. Even though it is an annual - it does self sow - would it make our harsh winters (Chicagoland area) and come up again? If not, how do I get spider flowers to look great in terms of when to plant?

Hello Mrytle,
I live in W.N.Y. (Buffalo area) so I know your weather, my cleomes reseeded with out any help. I had a new bed, I compost alot, so the top layer was compost, and they reseeded prolifically for me.
Also, they reseeded by the side of the house. Raised bed, by the house. Don't know if that had anything to do with it, but, I never had a problem with them.
I'm not sure if this will help, but we kept the area buried in snow, so the January thaw and cold winter winds don't kill the plants.
Just let the plant do the work, I didn't do a thing to encourage them.
Weezie
The only thing I can think of is the area where you have them, make sure the ground would be condusive to reseeding. If you use those weed~n~feeds, where they prevent reseeding, you won't get them to reseed. Or thick bark mulch or landscape fabric on top..
Does that make sense. they can't reseed..
I would imagine to collect the seeds, wait and watch the progress of the color of the seed pods. The lower down ones on the stem will ripen first. Some split open a bit even too. Take them off the stem or pod and put into an envelope, or coin holder..... Keep in a cool dark place I'm guessing here.
I'm sure someone who saves seeds will jump in here and correct me!!
Good luck Myrtle, and please let us know how your adventure in seed saving ends up?!!!!!!
Weezie

I let my seeds dry out a day or 3 then do up.i do them in envelope& also do them is storage container(glad) I have alot of humidity here.I set in dark under my computer on floor.i also take those gel things from shoes and put in contaner to help.believe me i need it..LOL I have 4 boxes of envelopes sealed up from humidity.my envelopes leave mail taped shut..LOL.
there are 2 kinds of cleome the queen mix& sparkler mix.I have to say I prefer the sparkler mix.my queen mix washed into a pile it didn't thrill me,but love the sparkler mix.what i have is pink.hopeing it comes in white.queen mix was slow to germinate and is in full sun planted maybe march here(last frost march 14th here ) the others planted may and they came up pretty fast and are in shade was only 5 seeds somebody shared out of a parkers pack.2 are tall and leaning towards sun the other 3 are short maybe needed more sun.
may germinate when soil temp is above 70 maybe.could try starting indoors if have the room,would give head start on your short season.use to live Indpls for 10 yrs,sure miss going to the brickyard though,but not the traffic for those 2 weeks.if you left some seed out to re seed though would pack 5 inches of mulch at least.

njoynit -
I thought I was the only one who used those gel packs! I also get them from inside vitamin bottles, new purses, etc. If you don't have enough gel packs, you can also use powdered milk. I just make a little packet out of a paper towel, put in a little dry milk, fold and put in my seed box or envelope.
I wonder how long those gel packs work?


Nikkal

Angels don't just come from Heaven, they come from North Houston Pole and Line Co.! Thanks, Texas!!

thanks for the dry milk tip
yep sure do use them,not sure how long they are good for,they are still working so guess thats a good sign huh :rolleyes:

I wanted Cleomes, and since my mom bought one last year, I asked her for a ripe seed pod from it last fall. The pod was fully brown ans starting to split, but it had a good bunch of seeds inside, which I dropped into an envelope and kept on my unheated back porch over the winter.

I had read that it was best to sow them before the last frost, as they like a chilling period before germination. (For that reason I suspect they might not like to be started indoors, but I have never tried that, so I may be wrong there.) So I did that, and they're out there right now, blooming away. There are nine or ten plants from around that many seeds, so they were very successful. I hope they reseed.

I didn't know what kind they were. Mine are pink and white. It is fascinating how they just keep making more and more buds right on top of the same stem as they rise ever taller. I wonder, should I remove the seed pods as they ripen, or leave them on? It's not like they can be deadheaded like other flowers. Anyone know?

Well, Bess, whether or not you remove the seed pods depends on a couple of things -
Where the plants are, and whether you'd like even more of them there next year.
As the seed pods ripen, they will split, and if not picked, the seeds will drop, and LOTS of plants will come up next year. My cleomes get so top heavy they tend to lean out of the beds, and even tho I try to pick all the seed pods, I always have plants coming up in the lawn in the spring! :rolleyes:

If you want a bigger area of cleome next year, and the plants don't lean out, leave the pods and let them reseed. As far as I can tell, leaving the pods on doesn't effect the flowering.

If you want to plant some elsewhere, or control their growth where they are, pick the pods, lay out to dry completely, and store in a cool, dry place until late fall or next spring. I let some reseed, and plant others in the spring, and they all do great!
Hope this helps...


Nikkal

Thank you, Nikkal. I'll probably pick some and leave some. Do people stake them up when they get too tall?

I thought about stringing one of mine its leaning over course may want more sun..LOL

Some people do stake or tie them to keep them upright. I just don't have time, so we go with the "au naturelle" look!
Some of them look a little odd, even tho the weight bends them over, the stem keeps trying to straighten itself, so they end up kinda squiggly-looking! It's interesting, though...


Nikkal

You can cut these plants back early in the season - when they are about a foot tall, and they will branch out and be bushier with multiple blooms per stalk. I had not planned to do this, but the woodchucks got to them and ate them half way down, thorns and all. Lynne

Lynn... Can't offer much expertise about cleome and how they might do in your zone but here is my Cleome story. They are amazing plants. I had pink and white about 3 or 4 years ago and then for some reason they stopped comming up. Well, this summer (late June) I extended the bed that the cleomes used to be in, put down some really good compost and low and behold by the middle of July I had cleomes coming up everywhere. Of course (because I tilled up the soil)I also had every weed know to man also coming up in the bed, but hey, you take the good with the bad. It first appeared there would only be white ones but within two weeks the pinks were blooming. In Sept, Hurricane Isabel took some of them out and I had to replant several that were almost blown from the soil but now they are doing great. The white ones are blooming all around two rather large Mexican Sage bushes. The purple blooms of the sage and the white cleome looks fantastic. As a matter of fact there are several new plants coming up now. It was in the 80's here today so why shouldn't they?! I'm looking forward to an even bigger and better crop of cleomes next summer.

Lynne, sorry for misspelling your name and I just realized it wasn't you that asked the cleome question. Thanks to you however, for the great tip about cutting the cleome to achieve branching. I'm goning to give that a try. Sounds like that will keep them from becoming so leggy. <img border="0" alt="[clappy]" title="" src="graemlins/clappy.gif" />

Hi Vikki ~

It's quite alright about my name spelling - when I was in elementary school, my teachers absolutely insisted that it could not be spelled that way and that my "real" name must be Linda!!! Can you believe that?!? The funny thing is that my sister-in-law's name is exactly the same as mine - LYNNE! I often tease my husband and tell him that's the only reason he married me. :rolleyes:

I'm glad to hear about the white cleome - I just got some seeds from the art center where I do my pottery. I bet they look great with your purple! I'll probably plant mine in the "white" garden I planted over my dear Cookie cat's grave. She was black and white, and I've planted a white rose of sharon in the middle with white tulips in the spring, and white geraniums in the summer. I had some white guara there too, but it got so huge this past summer that I took it out and moved it somewhere else. I found a nice pewter sign with cats on it that says "cats crossing" and hung it there too. I know that's not what it was meant for, but one can interpret that phrase in more than one way. It works for me.

I'm glad you got me thinking of the white cleome - thanks! Lynne

Lynne...know what you mean about spelling of the first name. My first name is Victoria and Vikki is just the nick name. Few spell my nick name correctly. Doesn't bother me though. My parents originally spelled it Vicki , but when I was about 10 I told mom I wanted to use Vikki . She told me I could spell it any way I wanted since it was a nick name. Cool mom
Your white garden sounds lovely. The Cleome will look great there. I planted some white obedient plant this summer and it was a constant bloomer. You night give that a try also. Have a good day.

Hey Vikki ~

When I finally had my daughter, seven years after my son, we wanted to name her Amy and I would have loved spelling it Aimee, but didn't want her to have to go through life explaining the spelling, as I have... So we chose Amy. She is now 13, and very very upset with me for NOT chosing the other spelling!!! "The grass is always greener..."

Anyway, I do have 2 patches of purple obedient plant and must say I don't like it very much. In one area it is very sparce, and the other area it gets way too tall and flops over - aside from the fact that the woodchucks just love this delicacy.

Any other ideas for more compact white flowers for Cookie's garden? Since I pulled out the guara I have room for smaller bushier plants now.

Thanks, Lynne

Hey plants and pots,
There's a campanula called Blue Clips,
I think, comes in purple(ish)blue and white.
3" or 4" high with the flowers, short to the ground.
Some garlics are cute and white (deer's won't eat them) I have one that's a walking garlic or nodding garlic and it curls under and around.

allysum is very nice, can reseed and smells great.

A few more, I can't think of right now..
Weezie

Lynne,
Hope you are having a great Saturday. For Cookies garden maybe you could try Veronica Alba. The plant stake for the two I have says it is mat-forming, low growning perennial that produces spikes of white flowers above shiny green leaves. Max height 18", max width 12". I just put in 2 of these late this summer so I'm no expert on them. We'll see next summer how well they do.

I'm all excited.

Thanks for the suggestions, Weezie. I'll add them to my list for next year. Do you know if the garlic spreads? I think it's a great idea to try to help ward off the animals, but wonder if it spreads like the onion grass that is out of control here? Where do you get your garlic from?

Thanks again Lynne

Nope, I don't think so,
what happens with my nodding ones is,
the flower it's makes bulbets,
they form, grow in size and weight,
then as the one stem starts to turn brown,
the weight of the bulbets, start to
bring the top down to the ground...
Where ever it lands is where the new babies
grow.
You can either let them be and you'll get about
10 or 12 plants, but they take a few years it seems to grow to a flowering size.
I think very nice plant, slow, easy to take out or prevent if you don't want them to reseed,
just pull the bulbet off after finishing and put up for a trade or hand over the fence!! (My neighbor in my mom's house used to say stuff like that, we'd "see you over the fence" alot!!!)

I personally got mine from my brother,
I would imagine garden catalogs have them,
not sure who????
I think mine are all on the ground under snow,
we got hit with about 4/5" the other day,
we're expecting it get to get warmer in a
few days, if I see any when the snow melts,
I'll repost back and let you know...
or remind me too!! I get side tracked often!

Weezie

Thanks, Weezie. I'm going to do a search on these garlics and see if I can come up with anything. I spent a few hours outside yesterday afternoon cleaning up some pots, etc - boy was it cold!!! And I broke my favorite earmuffs last year and can't find the same kind anywhere. Lynne

I am in Western N.Y. Ski country!!
Between Ellicottville~Holiday Valley and
Colden~Kissing Bridge and Peak~n~Peak and
few others I can't think of right now.
But I'm 50 miles South of Buffalo, N.Y. and
about 90 minutes North of the Pa border...
Ellicottville got about 6", we're in the foot hills of the foot hills of the mountains that run
up and down the East coast, we're the tail~end.
But it's nice, great summers, no hurricanes, tornado's, mudslides, fires, earthquakes, floods, killer bees, biting animals, etc, etc, but we do get to be on the Weather Channel and the likes every now and again for a blizzard or two,
in the words of our former mayor of Buffalo, Jimmy Griffin, There's a blizzard coming, get some milk, bread and stock up, get a 6~pk, turn to 97 rock radio and rip~the~knob~off!!!
Meaning get some food, stock up on it, you know where you live, turn the radio on and keep your butts at home!!!!!!
Yes, we get snow storms, but I tell ya, ya learn how to drive in them or you're in alot of snow banks, it's in our blood, I've often heard of stories of us Northerners going further South and bacause they don't normally drive in it everything is shut down, and they don't have the equipment to deal with it like we do here on a good 4 or 5 months basis, it's a disaster!!

Weezie

Hey, TomR, is in Dutchess County, is that close to your area?? There's a few in your area too, Luvsgardening, Will Creed, & TomR. I think one other on the guest map too....

The closest people I have here to my area from the forum is Limey and Carlo5270...

That's right, Weezie! Memphis has a population of over 250,000 people, and the city doesn't own ONE snowplow!! We have sand and salt trucks, they're pretty much useless in the type of snow/ice and melted-snow-refrozen-to-ice mess we get here!
The general opinion here is "Mother Nature put it here, Mother Nature will take it away", so everything pretty much stops until it's gone!
Unfortunately, some of us have no choice but to get out on the roads in the mess, that's when it becomes a real pain in the butt!
There's no way to "learn" to drive on ice, it's all luck! Too bad most of the people here don't understand that though. :rolleyes:
During our winter storms, if you have a pickup truck and a chain, you can get rich pulling people out of ditches!
I'm just glad we don't have winter weather often!


Nikkal

Nikkal,
That is an agreement here on this end.
Ice does scare me!!!
I lived on a hill, parallel with a ski slope hill.
And I remember one time the whole hill was ice
and I got to the top of the hill, only to have to go down the other side of the hill to go to town, and I was so scared, I had to do a 300 point turn, to turn around to come back down the other side to get off the hill, I had my mother and new born in the car, and I tell you, I hated that situation...
Ice is very scary because you can't stear in it.
Weezie