A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 my garden is a mess! i need help

some of you may have experienced the monsoon rains from last week on the east coast and may be able to relate....
after almost 6 inches of rain in my poorly draining yard/garden - many of my plants and shrubs are dying!! i just got back into town, and my russian sages (2), petunias (3), rose, hibiscus, plum tree, and phlox are either close to dead or dead. Three are also a bunch of other perrenials whose names i can't remember dying as well. this started after the rains, and i was only gone 3 days over the 4th, and my garden looks horrible now.

i was wondering if i can trim everything back and see if any of them come back, or if i should remove them and get new plants. it is really hot right now, i'm not sure what would be best. i also have grasshopers everywhere!! and a new one for me - japanese beetles are eating everything; my roses, sunflowers, and hibiscus (the living ones) foliage is ruined.

help please! i am frustrated - everything looked so good 2 weeks ago

thanks!

I wish I had some good advice for you but I'm just a newbie to gardening. Just wanted to offer some cuttings or even baby bushes I was going to remove this fall. Hope all is not lost. I'm sure someone knowledgeable will come along to help. Keep us updated!

Joanne

Claire, I wouldn't do anything for a few weeks to determine which plants survived your Monsoon. Then you can trim back any dead material and just let them recover normally. Perennials are tough and can handle more than we realize.

You will need to address the Japanese B's however and I'll let someone else give you their opinion on that problem. I don't know if the old soap and water spray works on them and that's all I use.

I know what you are talking about. We had the flooding rains her in NY too. I was lucky that my part of town did not flood, but some of my plants look very sad. The lavendar is all but dead. Some of the phlox are ok and others are beaten down. Luckily I got the tall lilies staked so they were saved. My plan is to wait until the sun returns-it is still overcast 50% of the time-to see if my plants can rebound. I have a lot of weeding to do because of the rain too, so at least my mind will be occupied with that for awhile. As for the beetles, I only have one rose with them and I have been picking them off and applying my shoe to them, but I do have an insecticidal soap spray that I use. Good luck!!

Yep, I wait for the sun to come back out and
dry things up too...
Mother Nature has a weird sense of humor sometimes, but usually the strong survive,
the weak, you take as a gentle sad loss,
but a well learned lesson in Gardening...
and don't give up!!!

Keep us posted on how it's drying out and
what's happening or how your plants are??

For the Japanese Beetles, I hand pick,
and carry a bucket of water...
I see one on a leaf, and push it into the water
(or they like to pretend to die or roll off the leaf it'self....so I hold the bucket right under the leaf to catch him.. or her...)

thanks guys, everything is fairly dry now, and it still look spretty bad, so i'm going to prune away this weekend and see what happens. hopefully some of my more established plants will survive!

Claire, we also had those rains. We got more than 11 inches of rain. Some of my plants are looking like yours. I'm just letting things dry out before I do anything. ...just as I would if I would have over watered a potted plant. We had heavy rain a few years ago that did the same thing and we just let everything dry up. As for the beetles, we also have them. I have some of those yellow beetle bags hanging around the yard. They seem to be doing well, although I do the same thing as weezie does with the bucket of water also.
Good luck!

I looked at those beattle bags today and almost got some but I held off. I'm sure I'll pay the price for that decision. But it's not as if the beattles are going anywhere they'll still be here even after I'm gone lol.

I was lucky. I got the rains but because I'm on a slope that ends in a 3 foot drop off that goes to a parking lot my plants are still in good condition. I have had to empty some of the pots I use that don't have good drainage but fortunately the coleus and the bellflower didn't mind getting flooded.

And right along with everyone else the weeds are popping up in profusion lol. I got a long handled hoe today to help me with that problem. I hope everyones plants come back better than ever.

I'll tell you a story, of here, about beetle bags..

I came to this house 12 years ago... I started a garden the 2nd summer I was here...
Not alot, but some things..
No beetles...
2, 3, years later no beetles...
The 4th year, a small handfull, nothing at all really and I hand picked everyone...

But my neighbor said she was having terrible problems with them for her..
*and she loveddddd to spray insecticides, herbicides, and any other "cides" you can think of..*
The 5th year she said she'd noticed a bunch of others in the town have those bags and she was going to get one...
*she got like 8*
We had them in DROVESSSSSSSSSS that year...
OMGGGGGGGG.... it was sooooo bad...
Now, she's moved... and my mom bought the house and we don't use them..
for the like first 3 years we still had them,
numbers weren't as bad.. but still have them..
*and I also noticed that not many of the other gardeners' get them anymore*
and my beetle population has dropped since about the 4th year I was here...

Most people stopped using the bags, which drew more in and made them multiply faster....
*(because there's a pheromoan *sp* in there to attrack them like there's a female in heat in the bag)*

And alot of times, they are drawn to plants that are stressed...
I can tell which one's are in trouble by which one's the beetles are on..
*the one year they ravaged my rhubarb...
well, it was a long, HOT, DRY SUMMER...
the next year, I remember it was cooler and rainer...and they hardly went near it..


I wish everyone would put their energy and effort into killing the grub in the ground..
*but that is my problem, no $$$$ to buy the stuff for the amount of space/lawn I have...*

we've never really had a problem with those bags. They usually don't even get a quarter full. This year I didn't put the bags out until just last week when I noticed the beetles. It was soooooo bad out there! I have milkweed out there to help the monarchs and they are just eating those things like there's no tomorrow. A friend came and weeded for me today and said she killed more than 40 of them. Other than the bag, I don't know what to do because when it is hot, I can't go outside without getting sick.

We had rain too. A lot of rain. I noticed today that a bunch of my bulbs in various places are unearthed.

The rain helped some plants but others of mine look almost dead too. Too much rain too fast.

Well, I think 3 of my 8 lavendar plants are DEAD. The large quantity of rain just overwhelmed them. I am hand picking the beetles and squashing them. My butterfly bushes are blooming and I sat outside today after weeding and just enjoyed the quiet and when the breeze blew the wonderful fragrance of my huge gardenia blooming on my deck. I am happy!!

That would be a problem...
cause they devour stuff during the hot days,
and hide at night...
*unlike the cucumber beetles that feed 24/7*
I would use the bags then, just as far as THE FARTHEST CORNER OF MY PROPERTY...
Just to keep them away from the main part of the house...

Lavendars aren't crazy about being over watered..


NOW THAT IS ONE OF THE BEST REASON'S I LIKE TO GARDEN...
it's that faint warm breeze you get a sweet smell of something from your garden, and
LIFE IS SWEET!!!!

Weezie

Thanks for the hint......Beetles.
I am picking mine and adding to a closed plastic spice jar.......Sure death over nite. They are horrible. when are they out of season??

dodge

I gave in and sprayed Sevin all over my non-veggie plants that have been attacked by the beetle plague the other day, and I haven't really seen any beetles since. I hate using chemicals but due to the loss of so many other plants i want to salvage what i can!
glad to hear i'm not alone in the rain situation. i live so close to the beach and it is completely flat and marshy, so there is such bad drainage everywhere. oh well. i think i may splurge and buy a bunch of annuals to fill in my bare spots...i'll post pics when i can:)
good luck everyone!

eClaire

You can try raising your beds to keep the moisture out........

Or make raised beds..say 2 or 3 feet tall, an fill with dirt....SOrt of like the window sill flower holders.

You can do that too.Put up window boxes, and large flower pots right on your patio , fool proof.

dodge