Message Boards

1/Should I deadhead wave petunias or million bells/calabrocha? I didn't think I was supposed to but they look horrible and leggy
2/Would shredded cedar mulch be good to add on the ground in the berm area of our peach trees and burning bush? Also on the fenceline where I am trying desparately to keep shrubs, flowers, etc alive...have amended the soil to help retain water but it still dries out quickly especially in the high temps/winds we are having this summer.
3/Have you seen the mulch 'glue' they have on the market? Just saw it at Walmart yesterday...with the wide open space we have here on the farm and winds it seems a good product to try...but then won't it stop moisture/rain/hose water from penetrating?
4/Where should I have planted my osteospermum? I thought it could take full sun but it seems to be burning up/also verbena or trailing verbena? I have been dead heading both too but doesn't seem to be helping.
5/Is chocolate mint a perennial? Love the smell but need the right place to plant it so we can smell it!! Was going to put it in pots on the patio/table then plant in the fall in the ground..ideas?
Thanks for any and all input and as quickly as possible before these poor plants disappear...(

I can answer about the wave petunias/million bells..you should not have to dead head them but when they get leggy I cut them back which seems to help them.
I always plant the osteospernum in full sun but this is the first year I have planted them in a pot and I am seeing them getting burned. I just water the planters every day because this summer has been so hot/dry in the east.
I don't plant mint because I always here everyone talk about it being so invasive.
Sorry I can't help you with the other things but I'm sure someone will.

I keep chocolate and spear mints in 5 gallon plastic pots. (Smaller pots would work too; but I use a lot, so I grow a lot.) I planted my lemon balm, which is in the mint family, in the ground. It's going berserk and crowding out the other herbs that share that plot. Unless you want nothing but mint, I wouldn't recommend planting it in the ground.

I have a Bohemian sort of friend in New Orleans who once planted her tiny lawn totally in mint. It survived well in the heat of NOLA, and she loved the scent of it when she mowed. Do you dare? LOL

I overwinter the mint by cutting it off to dirt level in late October and "heeling in" the pots into the bed from where the tomato plants have been removed. Then I mulch them with a pile of chopped leaves over the crowns.

One year I experimented... Put the pots in a protected area and piled bags of mulch and potting soil around them to protect the root zones of the pots. The plants didn't seem to be as vigorous the following summer as they are when heeled in for winter... But that could have had more to do with that summer's growing weather than the method used to protect the plants during winter. I also got lazy another year and left the pots totally unprotected all winter. Will never do THAT again... Almost lost my cherished spearmint.

1. Always take the advice to not deadhead, or prune back with a bit of skeptisism. Most of the thime you may not need to but then again maybe you will have to.
2. Which material to use as mulch is always a quandry. The muylch needs to be deep enough to aid in moisture retention and many people plunk down an inch or less and when that does nothing they state that mulching is a waste of time. Whether you use cedar or shredded pine bark makes no difference, it is the depth of the mulch, the thickness, that mattersw.
3. Those mulch "glues" are a product looking for a market.
4. Plants that are listed as needing "full" sun need at least 6 hours of sun per day, but they can languish in the extremely hot weather most of us have been seeing. You may need to put in place some shade cloth, or something else to provide them some relief from the sun.
5. Chocolate Mint, "Mentha piperita" is listed as a perennial hardy to zone 3 or 4 dependng on which grower you want to believe.

Osteospermum do well in the spring and early summer and then seem to languish in the hot summer. I wrote to Proven Winners and they told me that was the nature of the plant. Never tried them again since they were a big disappointment for me. Can't imagine them doing well in full sun in the summer. In my area, I only see them planted in containers in early summer and then they seem to disappear.

My Wave petunias and Calibrachoa went crazy and spread everyhere during the winter months and up until May. They always get leggy and scraggly looking after so much growth. I cut them back hard and give them a good feeding and they come back as beautiful as ever. I'm waiting till the heat subsides before I feed again though.

Zone9lady, how long do your annuals last where you are located? Ours look pretty scraggly by mid September. I've babied some into October but only in a year with a mild summer. I plan to cut back my petunias and calibrachoa and see what happens this summer. Anyone else have my experience with osteospermum?

Anymore suggestions on petunias and calibrachoa?

you could visit us at http://NMLandscaping.com/

Down here the annuals last until it freezes, which sometimes isn't until late December or January.

This past January we only got a couple of below freezing nights, but for some reason the petunias didn't mind at all...they just kept on growing.