Wallflowers
 

AFAIK the accepted thing with wallflowers is to grow them from seed/small
plants one year, have them flower the next year, then take them out
(possibly after letting the seed set and fall if you are trying to maintain
a bed by self seeding).
Effectively treating a perennial as a biennial to maximise the flowering
potential.

Well, had a self seeded wallflower this year come into flower around
May/June, set a load of seed.
I tied up the seed pods (still on the plant) to a cane to mature and meant
to come back later and remove the plant.

However it got left, and has now grown to about 5 times the original size
and has flowered several times (although not as much as the first time). It
is still flowering now.

I am tempted to leave it to see what it will do next year.
If it survives the winter, the options are to just let it get on, and
hopefully seed the bed for future years, or prune it back medium to hard in
the spring to see if it will produce a reasonable amount of flower on new
growth.

Anyone tried this?

Cheers

Dave R

--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

Wallflowers
 

David WE Roberts wrote:
I am tempted to leave it to see what it will do next year.
If it survives the winter, the options are to just let it get on, and
hopefully seed the bed for future years, or prune it back medium to hard in
the spring to see if it will produce a reasonable amount of flower on new
growth.

Anyone tried this?

I've had wallflowers (I think!) that have grown ok one year, then gone
totally mad the next, and totally taken over my planter by the third. Not
done deliberately, just didn't like to take the plant out whilst it was
still 'happy'.

My main problem is that they seem to get quite straggley (like unpruned
lavender does)

Wallflowers
 

On Dec 12, 11:11*am, "David WE Roberts" wrote:
AFAIK the accepted thing with wallflowers is to grow them from seed/small
plants one year, have them flower the next year, then take them out
(possibly after letting the seed set and fall if you are trying to maintain
a bed by self seeding).
Effectively treating a perennial as a biennial to maximise the flowering
potential.

Well, had a self seeded wallflower this year come into flower around
May/June, set a load of seed.
I tied up the seed pods (still on the plant) to a cane to mature and meant
to come back later and remove the plant.

However it got left, and has now grown to about 5 times the original size
and has flowered several times (although not as much as the first time). It
is still flowering now.

I am tempted to leave it to see what it will do next year.
If it survives the winter, the options are to just let it get on, and
hopefully seed the bed for future years, or prune it back medium to hard in
the spring to see if it will produce a reasonable amount of flower on new
growth.

Anyone tried this?

Cheers

Dave R


They just get more and more leggy. I suppose you could try cutting
them back.

Wallflowers
 

On Dec 12, 4:14*pm, harry wrote:
On Dec 12, 11:11*am, "David WE Roberts" wrote:





AFAIK the accepted thing with wallflowers is to grow them from seed/small
plants one year, have them flower the next year, then take them out
(possibly after letting the seed set and fall if you are trying to maintain
a bed by self seeding).
Effectively treating a perennial as a biennial to maximise the flowering
potential.

Well, had a self seeded wallflower this year come into flower around
May/June, set a load of seed.
I tied up the seed pods (still on the plant) to a cane to mature and meant
to come back later and remove the plant.

However it got left, and has now grown to about 5 times the original size
and has flowered several times (although not as much as the first time).. It
is still flowering now.

I am tempted to leave it to see what it will do next year.
If it survives the winter, the options are to just let it get on, and
hopefully seed the bed for future years, or prune it back medium to hard in
the spring to see if it will produce a reasonable amount of flower on new
growth.

Anyone tried this?

Cheers

Dave R

They just get more and more leggy. *I suppose you could try cutting
them back.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Wallflowers (Erysimum) in the wild are perenial plants, it's just
more conveniant to treat them as bi-annual,
Sow them in a seed bed, transplant to growing on area. Transplant to
flowering positionb when the summer bedding is finished,
When they have finished flowering remove and plant summer bedding.
But if you cut them back lightly after flowering they can grow on and
flower for several years.
Alternativly if you have somy you realy like then take cuttings from
them, to grow on.
David
At the very windy and rain lashed end of Swansea Bay

Yes, same here. Straggliness is the main problem.I don't bother with the growing new plants business, just leave them from year to year. I don't try to let them seed, so I chop the flower stems back quite hard after flowering.
Sometimes the main stems get quite woody, but you can cut them right back to new growth around the base. And sometimes the woodier plants just pack up altogether.

If you're growing just one or two wallflowers in a mixed border (which I do, as an early scent provider on the sunny terrace just outside the back door), then growing them as perennials seems perfectly viable. And you get a few stray flowers at this time of year if you're lucky.

It seems to me that a lot of what is passed on to amateur gardeners as gardening advice has originated from large scale gardening operations, either nurseries or gardens of large houses, and it's worth challenging. (For example, was it Charlie who told us recently that leaving two half leaves, not one whole one, at the top of a cutting was to make it easier to hold when you were doing several hundred cuttings?)

You can see that if you're filling a large bed with wallflowers, it's not going to be practical to go through the plants, prune back some, take out other plants altogether, and then fill the gaps. It's much more straightforward simply to replace the lot.

But if you're gardening on a tiny plot, it is feasible to deal with plants on an individual basis, and is quite rewarding.

What I like about urg is that so many urglers challenge the conventional wisdom and can then pass on their findings to the rest of us.