Looooong blooming - A Gardeners Forum [Archive]

Rarely do you find a perennial that blooms longer than a month, but last year I bought 2 Heliopsis "Summer Sun Sundrops' from Lowes. So far this year they have bloomed for 2 months and are still covered in blooms and buds. I totally expect them to bloom all or most of August as well. So, anyone looking for long blooming perennials might want to check it out. I was hoping to get more this year, but so far haven't found any.

I really have to stop reading your posts Alankhart. I seem to add another flower to my "must have" list every time I do! I couldn't find anything listed as 'Summer Sun Sundrops' but did find Summer Sun ? Are they the same thing?

Joanne

Alankhart - do you have a picture?

Thanks for the infor, Alan. Will look for them around here. Sue

They are great plants, Alan, but take heed. They are prolific reseeders so you may want to shear them back later this fall.

From an item at the Floridata website: " WARNING
Left to its own devices, oxeye sunflower reseeds abundantly and tends to become a weed. It can easily be kept under control by autumn deadheading since it does not spread from rhizomes." I thought that part of the item was interesting...not spreading from the rhizomes. So, save those seeds to share with your buds.

Floridata Heliopsis

Joanne, yes it's actually called Summer Sun...I think the label that came with them added the word sundrops.

I hope they do reseed...that way I can get more plants!

Here's a photo of one with some crocosmia.
http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e47/alankhart/DSCF1294.jpg

That's a great combo...love the red and yellow together. I just viewed all of your pix at Photobucket and your place is wonderful. Looks like you spend many hours keeping it in tip-top shape.

I pretty much live in my garden...I might as well just put me a bed there!

coreopsis, canna, daylily, lavender, sage, lantana, alyssum

all have long bloom times.

Just off the top of my head. There are plenty more.

I was just looking at your album Alan and you have a beautiful yard. If I only had half as many flowers as you have there!!!

Thank you very much! As much as I love it, I've created a maintenance nightmare.

Wow, I just looked at your pictures too and LOVE your gardens! What type of 'maintenance nightmare' did you create? I'm just starting to design my gardens and hope to avoid spending hours a day trying to keep up with it.

Joanne

First, I created too many garden areas making it difficult to mow and weedeat around. Second, I planted a few very invasive plants that took me forever to get out completely. Third, the sheer size of my garden makes it time consuming to water, deadhead, etc. It takes forever to mulch, compost, fertilize and then there's cleaning up in the fall. And of course there's weeds, weeds, weeds that have to be yanked.

Thanks Alankhart, I will have to keep all of those points in mind. What were the invasive plants you had to remove? Sorry for all of the questions, I'm pretty new to gardening and love being able to get advice from the experienced gardeners here.

Joanne

Chameleon plant (houttuynia), sundrops (oenethera), and golden rod. I'm still trying to get rid of some chameleon plant in one area, even after spraying it with roundup for the past 3 months! The top growth dies, but the roots remain and it just keeps coming back. It spreads so much underground it's almost impossible to dig up...if you leave the tiniest piece of root you'll have a plant.

Thanks for the heads up. I had the sundrops in a bed with very hard clay. They didn't seem to multiply very much until I moved them to a newly amended bed. Now babies are popping up like crazy. I plan to stick them right back into the clay stuff. Hope it's not too late!

Joanne