Yessss, a nice messs. BTW spaces count toward the 15.

tj

quickish fix: To get you through the next few weeks

1 ) get in there and dead head

2) pull up a few to give your eyes a rest from the crowded “mess”

3). prop up the ones leaning into driveway

if you don’t have those wire y stakes use crossed tall stakes (but shorter than the plants and remember them so you don’t poke an eye out)

the look is a bit loose and natural

4. Relax the fevered brain and take more time to think about what you want to see when you’re coming in the driveway.

maybe it just needs a more tidy edge? Or placement further away ? The hard line of the drive might not complement the loose edge of these particular plant

i like the loose and free effect of massed echs but ithey can devolve into “messy” as the stems elongate and flowered fade.

those are my thoughts as I contemplate my own mess of echs

I agree, I think just thinning them out will be a big improvement!!

I can’t offer any suggestions as I can’t even think of how to fix my own mess. This morning I think the neighbour heard me talking to myself while I was surveying my front bed.

Lol North! I heard myself doing the same this morning as I was making rounds in my beds.....

t s a t h a n k s f o r t h e s p a c e t i p.

Thank you for your compliments. It is pretty. I'd just think it can be prettier from the driveway side.

I have never deadheaded the echinacea because I like leaving the seedbeds for the birds. Perhaps it's time to deadhead the ones closest to the driveway. As for pulling them up, I feel a stabbing pain in my heart. Do you know how rarely I "shovel prune"? I think it's the spirit of my maternal grandparents both surviving the Great Depression...as orphans. I pulled some this year and planted them in what was supposed to be a "meadow" but looks like...the appopriate adjectives wouldn't be appropriate for this forum. I am planning on moving more seedlings to the Fake Meadow this fall. Yes, I do need to thin. Just pull, close my eyes and pretend it's grass, and compost. Even Tracy DiSaboto-Aust says she's run out of friends and family to gift with echinacea seedlings.

If you look in the back of the bed on the left side you'll barely see white phlox (probably David) poking up. I swear, that phlox elbowed and pushed its way up, reaching close to six feet, to find the sun above those echinaceas. It beat the bully like a champ.

Marie, I have some black stakes and twine I can use to prop them up. I will relax my feverish brain. I have to figure out what I'd enjoy seeing, and when. I did prune the front echs very hard to try to create a layered look on the edge, but they still need something in front to provide structure.

Deanna I feel your pain. I can never, ever thin seedlings, and I just can't seem to pull plants, even ones like echinacea and columbines, that pop up everywhere. I don't pull them out, I dig them out carefully and replant somewhere. All five hundred of them lol.

Earlier this spring I was reducing the size of my old cutting garden and there were dozens and dozens of little larkspur seedlings, some only an inch tall. I gently took out every single one of them and moved them elsewhere. By the end I wanted to scream and chuck the whole lot of them in the compost, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So I kept planting.

And now I'm revamping a long-neglected bed. It's filled with about thirty columbine plants, and in the spring I told myself I'd "rip them out" after blooming to make room for a more planned design. Well, they've been out of bloom for months now, and just today I was thinking, welllll, I don't have to rip them out... I COULD move them somewhere....

:)
Dee

A fever overcomes me when I decide get rid of something. I wait and wait and procrastinate trying to figure out 'if I move this here, then I can move that there, but that won't work because...maybe overthere. that doesn't thrill me and on and on and on until the end of the gardening season and my brain is so tired I can't think about moving one more thing, and my back is tired from digging and my hands are tired from clipping and if I have to make one more trip to the hose I will weep.

So Deanna, the fevered brain comment was pure projection.

I find it very freeing to rip out plants that don't perform and annoy me with their sulky behavior . I had a planting of Saliva New Dimensions Rose. I cut it back after it bloomed and just never looked good again. It never looked tidy, it was slow to regrow and I didn't even wait to see if would re bloom. I have never in my gardening life ripped out a 2 year planting 5 healthy plants but there was no reassurance it would look better next year.. I'm getting better at setting limits. Life's too short. I'm in charge of the garden and if I want something gone, it's going.

Phlox have become congested in my circle garden and aren't as tall as they used to be especially when compared to a volunteer in another bed. I agree that echinacae needs to be left for the goldfinches but perhaps there is a compromise. I offered free plants on our town's private group facebook page and got some takers. At least the plants will have new homes. But my phlox and shasta daisies are crowding out the echinacae and I think I read that echinacae are short lived perennials.

Deanna- You can just add the needed spaces at the end of the title.

tj

right now through Sept there’s plenty of food for the birds such as insects, berries and weed seeds

I deadhead until it appears flower production is really slowing down then let the flowers go to seed. . Or I just get tired of dead heading and throw in the towel. The reseeding is reduced , There's a longer bloom period and the birds get the seeds. just later. That's a 3 x win for revamping the garden practice a little bit.

Marie, that's a fantastic point. They will regrow flowers if I deadhead now. Thank you! I'm a Grateful Deadhead now for that reminder.

Sorry, tsk, my joke was certainly esoteric. I figured you meant the end of the title. I'm feeling bit giddy these days because I've had to work full time in our office, which is absolutely not the norm, and tomorrow I begin training my replacement, who seems wonderful. I get excited thinking that next year I'll be able to do decent gardening again in summer, I hope. I'll add spaces at the end next time.

Wait, joke? I usually get even esoteric jokes. Tracey DiSabo -Aust of "Perennial gardens" fame has already claimed the title of "Deadhead Queen".. I think the "tender hearted gardener" might work given your inclination not to dispose of unwanted seedlings.

My joke comment was directed towards tsuga and the spaces to get fifteen characters, but autocorrect turned it into tsk. Didn't catch that one! I like Tender Hearted Gardener.

the more accurate term is “auto mistake”

i definitely missed the joke!

Oh, Marie! I feel horrible because my communication skills are clearly wonky right now! The person who "didn't catch that one" was ME because I didn't catch my typo! I was definitely not saying you didn't catch the joke. Now as I reread it, it sounds like it was directed towards you. NOT MY INTENTION! That's what happens when I leave the subject out of a sentence like cool modern hip kids do, and then on top of that end the sentence with the vague meaningless phrase "that one." Kids somehow seem to understand what their friends are saying, but I need to stick to the rules of grammar or I sound ridiculous. "I didn't catch that typo." There. I said it correctly!

Deanna, I wasn't at all offended. You may have mistaken brevity- it was late- for taking offense.

Given the political climate there are many things that are offensive, but echinaceas or typos aren't two of them.

So, let's get back to gardening.

Aren't you supposed to be out in the ech patch cleaning up?