I love that this theme is resonating! It is one of those vexing situations when a plant withers apart into something awful - then what do we do with it?

Everyone's suggestions are excellent! I'll echo the admiration for fernleaf bleeding hearts, sedum, dianthus (especially 'Firewitch' and the like), hosta, ferns, heuchera, single peonies, and pasqueflowers. Those are some of my most beloved go-to plants.

I am just trying epimedium this season and am pleased to see it makes the list too. I hope mine are happy because I'm already attached to them.

I'd add a few more:

• Russian sage
• Your standard purple coneflower
• Siberian iris
• Some pentemons, like the standard Rocky Mt. penstemon, and 'Firecracker'

In the shrub department, I'd add:

• 'Black Lace' elderberry
• 'Summerwine' ninebark
• 'Globe' blue spruce
• Any kind of serviceberry - a true 4 season shrub for me.

I am always hoping/hunting for more plants that meet these criteria. I'm trying out a few different groundcover junipers, which I normally scoff at, but there are some cool ones out there. The potential discovery of the next favorite plant is always enticing!

Just today I walked by our long since having finished flowering veronicastrum. It is tall enough, even with the flowers gone, that it is architectural. The whorled leaves are always immaculate. I love this plant. (Thanks again GW member Sunnyborders for making me aware of this perennial).

NHbabs, that meadow is simply wonderful, I'm very jealous. I keep thinking of ordering Amsonia hubrichtii but then I back off worrying I won't be able to keep the soil moist enough in summer. I had it on my list and then changed it to Solidago 'Little Lemon' at the last minute because its supposed to have excellent drought tolerance, I lost about half the plants I ordered las fall this summer from drought so currently I'm gun shy. I love the fall colors of the Amsonia though.

Is that pink Indian Paintbrush in the first picture? The big fat evergreen looks like its floating on a sea of pink, truly wonderful!

Marie I agree about the spring planting especially up north, even down here with a long warm fall I've lost some fall planted grasses and we don't have the heaving or frozen soil issues. 'Blonde Ambition' once established is good down to zone 4. I think its a good alternative if 'Hamlyn' Pennisetums don't winter over well + the blooms start earlier. I've had some bad luck with Pennisetums suffering a lot of winter kill or not coming back at all in spring. I think maybe it was crown rot.

Agree with Karin about Russian Sage and the penstemons (along with a few other SW penstemon types) except sometimes they die after blooming and form ugly 'carcasses' that I leave to get the seeds, others live on, possibly because we are not quite in their preferred native region. Sand Penstemon is A+ for looks and long bloom time.

TR2, that pinky-purple surrounding the spruce is the purple love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis) with just a few spots of little bluestem that's taller and darker. Pretty amazing, isn't it?! That part of the field is dry, being both the highest part of the field and the part with the least amount of organic content to the soil. Most of the year it's just sparse grass, but for about 3 weeks starting in midAugust, it's stunning. And it was already growing there when we bought this old farm; all we've done to the field is remove trash, push back encroaching woodies and remove poison ivy. It gets mowed twice a year to discourage poplars, cherries, and buckthorn from growing, once after the turkey eggs have hatched and the second time after that late summer glow has faded.

I can only speak to my experience with A. hubrichtii, but as far as NH plants go it's pretty drought resistant. We went from a low snow winter to a dry spring (we went 4 weeks with not a sprinkle) to a hot and fairly dry summer. We have water restrictions in most areas of the state for the first time in about 25 years. It's in a bed that's well mulched with organic matter but has gotten absolutely no supplemental water since it was established, so it might work for you. A bit further down the bed I have western penstemons and Agastaches, many of which have done well there due to the good drainage. I'll see if I can find some seeds for you.

Over here, Mary Ann has hubrichtii growing on a rocky slope...that's fairly drought tolerant. Oh, and she's farther south than me and drier (if that helps)...

Bouteloua Blonde Ambition may not be reliable up here based on my experience and talking with others. Great little grass where it thrives.

A bit of a prosaic plant but does fit the bill for me is geranium Max Frei..

After late spring blooming one gives it a haircut and it looks neat and tidy for the rest of the season.

NHbabs, you are very lucky to have native grasses. Many of the abandoned farm fields around here are invaded with weedy nonnative grasses like Dallis grass, bermuda, Johnson Grass and Cheatgrass, if not burned or mowed down trees take over.

I noticed your Baptista plant, I came across some Baptista seeds yesterday. One type is purple -- large plants and I shook a few seeds from the opening pods but the ones I'm most excited about is Wild Yellow Indigo--Baptista sphaerocarpa which is much smaller and which was covered with darling round wooden seed pods. Baptista is definitely a plant that looks good in or out of bloom even though it will take quite some time to get to a decent sized plant from seed. I also collected seed from what I think is Blue River Hibiscus. The plants were stalk-like rather than bush-like with gigantic white flowers. Nice looking plants. There was some kind of native aster that was about knee high, very attractive dense plants covered in buds. I plan to go back later to collect seed. Now that those two big trees are gone from next door, I can plant some new things where it was once shade, I'm nearly beside myself over the prospect.

Maybe I could try the Hubrichtii over there too, its close to where I keep the hose rolled up and one of the faucets. Might put that on a late fall order from SRG since I never can resist the super sale.

TR2 I've started Baptisias from seed both self-sowing in the garden and intentionally sowing from other folks' plants. The ones I sowed on purpose I nicked the other cover and a high % germinated. Only a few germinate on their own in my garden. I find that the second year they are good sized and the third year they are big, though they continue expanding slowly after that. Unfortunately, this is a plant the voles like, so I need to plant in cages.

Rouge, I use many Geraniums that fit this category, some of which benefit from hard cutting back once, but then have tidy mounds of foliage, and others that I just let grow. I like the variety of color, size, texture, and shape of Geranium leaves, even for those that only bloom for a short period in spring.

How much of a pain is it to cut back baptisia at the end of the season? I know it gets huge, so does it have a million stems to cut? I'm trying to avoid plants that need a big effort to snip snip snip snip, on and on. For example, nepeta Six Hills Giant is a no-go, but peonies are fine, because they only have a few stems.

I use a variety of Japanese blades - from a large hand sickle to a small, crescent shaped grass cutting knife - gather in huge clumps and slice through the lot. I am already enthusiastically hacking and chopping (roses, fruit bushes) before the enormous autumn slasheroo (when the compost mountains require extensive tossing actions with hay forks.). Baptisia is one for the hedge shears. I love Japanese blades.

Hedge shears are very efficient

but holding them up and at the right angle hurt my shoulders

i used to be annoyed by pink "lady tools" but perhaps manufacturers will develop lighter weight clones that won't razz up bursitis and its ilk. I love yard work and don't mind getting filthy and tired. I don't like hurting.

.

Baptista sphaerocarpa wasn't that big-- 2 to 3 ft. with rounder & lighter colored leaves than the big purple ones, they were growing at the base and together they made an interesting planting. B. sphaerocarpa is the one I am most interested in planting. I'll probably end up sowing the seeds from the purple but the plant I got seeds from was very big, almost 5ft wide. Currently I don't have a space for it but was thinking I could take out a salvia greggii since I've got so many of them. I like the perennials I think of as small sub-shrubs like rosemary, artemisia, bush salvias, lantana, flame acanthus etc., they work well in the continuous not horrible plant dept and they don't die down to the ground in winter, I like that part.

Most of the big slasheroo marathon occurs in February here. My main tool is grass shears because its up close and personal. Seems they cut just about everything I grow and I like the angle of them. Hedge clippers or anything that has to be held up or swung or otherwise done standing soon gets torturous on my back, my legs are much stronger than my back probably from years of squatting. I like to clean out leaves, trim down and pick up stuff as I go so usually I'm usually down at ground level like a toad in the squatted down position with my butt about 4" from the ground. Its probably why I like weeding, I'm comfy in that position.

Yep, I have some ancient grass shears - those with long arms, which are totally indispensable (I am dangerous with a brushcutter and positively maniacal with my austrian scythe) - along with secateurs and a decent fork, they are my most useful kit.

I am not a squatter (knees - gasp) but have a spine of iron, spending hours bent completely double - clearly built from peasant stock meant to endure hard labour on the steppes.

Karin - I cut the Baptisia with pruners sometimes, but other times just break them off when they get crispy. For Nepeta, nothing beats old-fashioned hand hedge shears. I learned that on this forum; 3 or 4 whacks and I am done. I use them to cut back most of my perennials now, anything that doesn't have really thick stalks.

IME Baptisia will have a bunch of stems, but more like 50 than the bazillions that Nepeta has.

I used to have a lovely pair of Japanese shears very flat, sharp when sharpened , all the same metal with no springs. Now I have to think ergometrically

iI sit on a little Rubbermaid stool that used to cost $5

now it is 12

never failed until it was run over

Mine are like this, nothing fancy, just a common low priced garden tool from Home Depot or Lowe's. Its become one of my all purpose tools because it works so well for trimming & cutting back just about everything. They work very well for cutting back the grasses in February. They don't make my hand tired like pruners do and they cut good, I quit using pruners after I got my first pair.

For bigger branches I really like Friskars bypass loppers, I got a good quality pair this spring and they work so much better than other loppers I've owned.

Just to mention: Baptisia spherocarpa is an enormous plant for me--larger than any other Baptisia I have.

This is great advice! I'm wary of adding plants that need a big trimming job each fall, because despite my transition to shrubs, I still have hundreds of perennials. But DH just bought hedge shears so I will give that a whirl during fall cleanup this year.

Babs, your advice is particularly helpful, thank you! When possible, I also prefer to snap off old stems rather than cut them. I have a spot that is big enough for baptisia but I have been wavering. I will keep deliberating on it...

laceyvail How enormous? Whats the height and width of yours? Those plants I saw might have been either young or maybe the soil moisture and fertility makes a difference? In my garden I have areas that have improved soil that used to be the defined planting beds when I had a lawn with landscaping. The part that used to be lawn grows plants much leaner. The same plant will act different depending on which place they are growing.

I was going by online information which says it grows 2 to 3 ft tall and 3 to 4 ft wide, I can handle that, its a good size for making a statement. I like that its native to the lower midwest where I am. Its going to have to tolerate dry and maybe sandy soil here in summer.

This brings up an interesting point, one that is good to keep in mind when we ask how a plant performs in someone else's experience. My sister in Kansas has very rich soil & usually gets more moisture than us, she is also in zone 6 while I am in zone 7 so thats another difference. She decided to convert her large in-town corner city lot to prairie like I did with my urban lot but at her place everything grows huge. While mine is easy to maintain and low growing, hers ended up being an overgrown jungle and the difference in the size and growth rate of same plants grown at my place and hers is mind boggling and really beyond belief, especially the grasses. If that wasn't bad enough, she ended up with a heavy infestation of chiggers & can't go out in the yard to weed which needs to be done constantly (unlike mine here) without being swarmed. On top of all this, she got a citation from the city for overgrown tall weeds and grasses. All in all, what she ended up with was a garden disaster. She called me the other night truly depressed, overwhelmed and at her wits end still trying to deal with it after three years. I felt so bad for her I was at a loss of what to advise or say, she was crying at the end of the call.

Its OT but I had to post him (my husband's photo). I've seen more this year than I can ever remember, I see them flying around like airplanes at night and landing on the wall.

This is a very useful thread! Aside from ones already mentioned, I can add aruncus. I have two types growing in my garden, one that I think is the standard species, and another dwarf variety and they are both still bushy and green. Even though I plant disease resistant roses, most are looking pretty ratty by now. However, my rugosas (I have a handful of varieties) still look perfect and several of my once-bloomers still look great, such as Charles de Mills and Tuscany Superb, especially after the slight shaping/pruning I did a few weeks ago. I can also recommend Rudbeckia 'Little Henry". Another one that fits the late blooming rule of thumb discussed earlier.

-Chris

I'd also add Coreopsis verticillata. Long bloom time that's just finishing up now for me, forms an attractive mound, doesn't flop, easy to fill spaces quickly with small starts and provides a nice light texture and color that compliments everything.

For the baptisa cutting.... For me up in southwest Ohio... After I let them stand through winter... Come spring clean up time ... all them stems have rotted at the crown where the new stems are starting to poke through. I can just grab a bunch and they come free without effort. I do chop them up as mulch but I don't have to cut them down like a grass or more woody perennials

Oh no, I am not beating myself up (again) but am going for an easy cheat - annuals. I always grew heaps of these but in my efforts at grown up gardening, I tended to dismiss these little jewels as being 'not real gardening'- probably because they were tossed around in September then robustly ignored...but this year (next year) I am travelling back to my roots with a joyous order of hardy annuals and a couple of first year blooming perennials...and in an effort to counter another flaw (an excess of pink), I have carefully stuck with blues, purples and whites. Just for the curious, here they are:

Iberis 'Lilac',

Linaria marrocana 'Licilia Azure'

Phacelia campanularis

Echium plantagineum Blue and White Bedder

Nigella Bucharica (so much daintier than nigella damascena)

Centaurea cyanus 'Mauve Ball', Blue Ball'

Escholscholzia Californica 'Purple Gleam', 'Ivory Castle'

Succisa pratensis

Patrinia Scabisifolia (a stray lime green)

Catanache

Legousia

Linum perenne. narbonense

and a bunch of sweet peas including the bizarre Blue Vein, Blue Shift, Earl Grey, Lunar Sea, Just Jenny and Roosterville.

Also, it means a massive sowing session which can be transplanted before the autumn perennials and sweet peas require the space. Yahoo - got my gardening libido back.

And when they start to look tatty - no bothering with trimming, deadheading - just rip them out (they always have a tiny little rootball). Might do a spring sowing too.

Campanula

I felt a whine rising in my throat because you can't find most of those at our nurseries

Then I got to the part about sowing them and felt really completely defeated

to clarify do you sow most of your annuals?

marie

Oh Marie!! You need some good interesting seed sources, off the beaten tracks kinds of places online because even if you can't find those exact ones she mentioned there are plenty of others just as good and probably ones that might do better in your location, many of those on that list certainly wouldn't in mine but then we can do stuff here that wouldn't stand all that English moisture over there.

I love annuals, in fact, I couldn't get by without them and I especially like the ones that self sow sanely which are usually hardy ones and often natives that really draw in the interesting pollinators. Short lived perennials offer good choices too.,

Frankly continuous bloom is the easiest part to achieve in gardening, the least of my difficulties or worries because annuals always provide continuous bloom with ease and its no challenge to accomplish that and there are even a few perennials I grow that bloom from spring to frost. Its when you try to accomplish it with just perennials (an utterly ridiculous idea in my opinion) that its like a juggling act. The harder part is garden arrangement, composition and avoiding plants that are less than attractive out of bloom, ones that leave what I call the ugly hole in the garden tendency or an ugly downtime or ones that take up space 90% of the time as a green uninteresting blob or even worse as a drab rag or ones with an unsightly period (like daffodil foliage, daylilies and peonies, sorry if that offends anyone). I hate devoting space to plants like that but then.....other people think the blooms, no matter how brief they are, is worth it so thats fine too, its just not for me.

"I especially like the ones that self sow sanely." Me too! Annual poppies and Nicotiana are two favorites.

I'm talking about my inclination to sow seeds, more specifically, not sow them. There's no fix for that. It's a bad attitude. I have enough cleanliness challenges (including a lack of interest in housekeeping) to not want peat pots, soil mixes and water = mud on the dining room table or kitchen counters. When my outdoor gardening becomes more limited I can imagine starting seeds. Before children I used to start seeds, plant pots of bulbs, have houseplants. and though the kids are gone I am not inclined to start any of those projects in the near future.

There are wonderful seed catalogues. I read them. That's all.

I never sow hardy annuals in pots and I don't wintersow them in jugs either although lots of people do as I found out on the forum. Personally I think thats completely unnecessary and a huge waste of time. I always direct sow any new annual I'm trying out and then after that its usually a matter of nature doing it for me or me thinning some out or sometimes deciding I'm not wanting a certain kind so I rip them out.

I'm already making my list and checking it twice for new hardy annuals to try out. And, I almost always sow them in fall because so many germinate and then winter over and take off early in spring. Thats the beauty of hardy annuals, they are the lazy gardeners friend.

OK - seed sources. Plantworld was my go-to place after Chiltern changed hands (and became rather unreliable, no longer doing their own germination tests) but they are not cheap so I order from there only for rareities such as several different houndstongues (C.hungaricus). All my annuals came from Seedaholic, which also include really great information and generous quantities for under $2 a packet. 2 grams of Californian poppies, 1,400 seeds for less than a couple of bucks! B&T World seeds are another source for rare specialities but tend to sell in larger quantities.

Sowing. Well Marie, I admit it - I am more interested in the actual growing of plants than arranging them in the garden and maintaining them afterwards. I would, if I could, run a plant nursery so hundreds of little pots is no problem at all - I even require them to validate my existence. I survive the long English winter with daily thrills as new germinations keep me going in the gloom. In truth, all of these could be sown directly where I want them to flower...but I have about a month-6weeks before I really start sowing in earnest so getting a couple of hundred pots of annuals going is just another thing to keep me gardening (low boredom threshold, short attention span). I will also do a direct sow and even another spring one, also direct in the soil. My tiny home garden consists of a large greenhouse which takes up a full third of the area and stays largely empty all summer (too hot) but is stuffed over winter. I hope a polythene hoop tunnel is somewhere in my future.

I plant between 3-9 seeds to each 3inch pot...and will probably have 200 pots or so in trays...but will be transplanted into position before the end of October and the pots and space will be used for the serious stuff which needs stratification and long germination periods - I still have a hundred or so from last year, waiting to be planted out sometime late September...and the tree nursery. The soil will be warm and friable and they will hunker down over winter. Autumn sown annuals are a totally different proposition to spring sown ones - they will be at least 4times bigger and 6 weeks earlier. A single cornflower can produce hundreds of blooms and require staking.

Also, my allotment soil is basically rubbish - I grew fewer veggies as I could no longer source good manure or make enough compost so the soil returned to its dry, sandy state - perfect for annuals, bulbs and wildflowers which make up the bulk of my planting there (many for picking). The choice perennials are for my home garden and my 2 little woodland gardens.

Of course, sowing, propagating and growing all these plants is only the start of all my garden troubles - finding spaces for them and maintaining them is the really frustrating and baffling part for me. I have certainly punted the odd batch on Ebay but mostly foist them on my family and friends.

Catananche caerulea might be a good one for you, Tex - looks great with grasses and laughs at drought. And asphodelus fistulosus was another I have grown - also a possibility - although I suspect it is frowned upon as a noxious weed...but I have difficulties seeing annuals as problematic.

I should ask on the New England forum about direct sowing

used to be we had good rain in the fall, snow in winter and rain in spring although spring is a confused thing here: gorgeous or freezing or a heat wave

I could be dead wrong but I think the unpredictability may may make direct sowing of annuals more problematic

however people who garden veggies direct sow cool weather crops successfully

Yep, I have an old gardening book - The Vegetable Garden Displayed from the 40s and there are lots of pics of a couple of old buffers in funny pants who sow EVERYTHING directly into the ground - none of this raising sweetcorn and beans in pots and transplanting. Literally everything goes into drills (with a bean trench for the runners).

They did only do tomatoes under glass though.

My problem with direct sowing has been protecting them from chickens (scratching) and everything else nibbling. What's your strategy? And is a buffer what we call a duffer?

A buffer would probably be a chap, possibly golf-playing, certainly with a penchant for baggy trousers and port who refers to all women as 'gels'. Duffer would possibly be similar but with extra idiocy.

And crop protection is a whole other ballgame involving nets, fleece, cloches, fences, sprays, pellets, camouflage, shiny things, decoys, blind luck, extreme hope and a total understanding that some of them are going to be doomed. Although I finally desisted doing extreme veg growing after being reduced to 6 separate sowings to get a mere dinnerful of peas, I still enact guerilla warfare against marauding pigeons and rampaging blackbirds on my cherries and redcurrants...and have been rudely introduced to deer - no longer cute Bambi things...but more like possible venison pie.

There is NO protection from chooks apart from strict hen apartheid...although when mine departed to casserole heaven, I planted blackcurrants where the run used to be...and have the biggest bushes on the plot.

Casserole heaven... LOL!

Are chooks chickens multiplied?

Sorta - you can have a singular chook as well as a flock of chooks. Thought that was common parlance.

Mine were a shortlived experiment because they were on my allotment...no wandering outside in jammies to open the coop, instead, a freezy bike ride, which got earlier and earlier, 3 times a day - once to open the coop, then back to feed them and collect eggs (had to be done late enough to keep them happy overnight...and my hens expected a hot breakfast) then back to shut them in for the night as Mr Fox was liable to 'Dig for Victory'. I rigged up a bodged-up timer involving an old alarm clock (one of those with bells) but couldn't guarantee 100% reliability (unsurprisingly)

Well, I learned something new today. ....chook pl:chooks.....who woulda thunk it?

You guys are crazy. "Chook, chook, chook" is what you say when you feed chickens, any well bred farm person knows that but maybe its different for city folk. Anyways, thats what my grandma always did and I never heard any plural chooks and I never heard chicks or chickens called chooks here in the Midwest where they know about such things.

Nah, its just a colloquial thing said in jest. I can easily imagine the scene at a small town cafe if a brit walked in and called chickens 'chooks'. They'd all chew on it a while, come to the same consensus and then laugh.

According to several on-line sources, "chook" is Australian slang for chickens.

Great list so far!

Its a little too soon to say for sure but I picked up Viola walteri 'Silver Gem' this summer and am super impressed so far - the foliage is pretty and frosted looking and it seems tough as nails. We'll see how it does next year.

I am interested in annuals for the first time in my life and think I will do more with them next year as fillers. Seed catalogs have me quite interested - so much more then the big box store displays of the usual suspects.

Tex, my heart goes out to your sis. I remember seeing pictures you posted of her front yard before and I thought it was beautiful, but perhaps that was before the conversion? I have been there - bitten off more than I can chew/not knowing what I was getting into and had a good couple cries! Sometimes a clean start is needed - pull out the best and tear down the rest. Sending good vibes her way.

greenhearted, thanks for the comment, it was very considerate. I felt so bad for her and couldn't come up with a single worthwhile suggestion or think of a way to solve it. The photos I posted of her yard were after the transformation & I thought it looked good too, so good in fact I started mass planting many of my plants like she'd done in my ugly problem areas, planting all one kind in groupings like she'd done.

I think the problem along with her too rich soil is the amount of rain they've had this year, everything is hugely overgrown, too tall or flopping. Barron was saying the same thing about Arkansas, too much rain. Here in central OKlahoma between those two areas of Kansas and Arkansas where I am relatively close by we are in drought and had a terribly dry summer, mine looks colorless and fried, not overgrown by any stretch. Go figure that one out. Heck even Texas got a lot of rain this summer.

The worst effect my sister is dealing with since going prairie and removing the lawn is chiggers. I'd have never even thought of that happening. She said they are grossly thick and she can't get in to work without getting bit (although spraying and wearing long sleeves and pants does help but thats miserable in hot humid weather) or having them fly in her eyes. It sounded like the stuff of nightmares.

On top of all that just like NHBabs was telling us, she has duscovered she is very allergic to grasses and breaks out whenever she's around them. What do you say to all that?

I always direct sow any new annual I'm trying out and then after that its usually a matter of nature doing it for me

TR2, I am dying to know if you ever had success (direct) sowing verbena bonariensis?

[VERBENA BONARIENSIS[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/tall-verbena-dsvw-vd~1668712)

Yes but I didn't have success getting them through summer this year after the first blooms although they survive winter quite easily in zone 7. I noticed a couple new ones recently, one in a sidewalk crack, both are blooming. I've always just tossed dried seed heads on the ground where I want them & they always come up, they also transplant very easily and don't go into shock when moved.

I only sow hardy annuals and some biennials, not the tender annuals, mostly natives.

Verbena bonariensis sows itself here :0

I was on my walk and I commented on them to the woman who gave me the first plants, she just pulled them straight out of the ground and I planted them when I got home, the plants were unflapped. She called it a nuisance and said she was always yanking them out.

Ick, the chiggers sound horrible! And allergies on top of that! Not something I would have considered either.

We live at the bottom of a valley and have a lot of water that collects on our property so we are mosquito heaven (greenhearted hell) and I have to suit up, including a very attractive mosquito net veil, at the worst parts of the season. I find if I work during the hottest parts of the day, the numbers are significantly less. I wonder if chiggers are the same... does she have a lot of shade? The taller floppier plants are probably providing a nice shelter for them so maybe targeting them as the first to go might help?

My gardening buddy sent me some Verbena bonariensis last year and it was a snap to germinate. I wintersowed it but she said it self seeds really well and sounds like it can border on weediness depending on where you are. I grew it in a pot and didn't save seeds so I didn't have it this year. But I really liked it!

I also have variegated iris - Iris pallida 'Variegata' that I planted this year among some Veronica 'Waterperry Blue' and 'Angelina' sedum - and so far, this grouping has looked great all season long. Apologies for my great picture taking skills.

Chiggers are such a pain. I helped my sister with her garden one year andgot chigger bites. tr, I'm sure you sister put a lot of work and effort into her prairie garden. Perhaps she can find out which of the grasses cause allergic reactions. I would cut my loses and get rid of most or all the grasses and try something new. We have had above average rains this summer and the grasses displayed at the MN Arboretum are standing upright. My grasses are looking good as well.

I ws v. bonariensis, Brazilian verbena, many years ago. The next year I pulled up many seedlings but have had only a few for the last couple of years. Took one to a plant swap yesterday. I warned her that it is a tender perennial here and to let it self sow if she wants more plants.

rouge, one year I took a plant with seed heads and tapped them where I wanted plants in the spring. Worked fine. Perhaps you might collect some seed heads from friends and toss them about.