Full sun; light shade in hot-summer climates
Regular watering
Penstemon gloxinioides
These bushy, typically upright plants are fairly
short-lived but to make up for it, they produce lots
of color over a long period. The tubular, 1" to 2" long flowers, popular with hummingbirds, are carried on leafy, semirigid stalks that rise from clumps of narrow, 3"
leaves. Colors are red, orange, and blue, but cultivars have increased the range to include white, soft pinks, salmon, peach, deep rose, lilac, and deep purple.
Plants generally grow as wide as they are tall. Two widely sold species, both offering many cultivars, are P. barbatus, reaching 2 feet tall and blooming from midsummer to fall; and P. gloxinioides, a 2- to 4-foot-tall summer bloomer.
Grow in average to sandy or slightly rocky soil; be sure drainage is good. These plants aren't divided, but simply replaced every 3 to 4 years. Don't fertilize. Doing so shortens their already brief lifespan.
RUDBECKIA FULGIDA
Black-eyed Susan
Zones 1-24, 26-43
Full sun
Regular to moderate watering
Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm'
Bright colored and easy to grow, black-eyed Susan is
covered with 3- to 4-inch-wide, dark-centered yellow
daisies from midsummer until late fall. The flowers are
borne on multibranched, 2- to 3-foot stems that rise
from a 2-foot-wide foliage clump; leaves are medium green,
elliptical in shape, up to 5 inches long. Cut for bouquets
or deadhead during the season to prolong bloom, but leave
the last blooms of summer in place; the dark centers that
remain after petals drop can be used in dried arrangements
or left on the plants as food for birds. Black-eyed Susan
grows well in ordinary garden soil, spreading by
underground rhizomes to form large clumps (you can remove
newly emerging plants if they overreach their boundaries).
Divide clumps when they lose vigor and their centers stop
growing and blooming (every 4 to 5 years or so).
Bleeding Heart
How to kill, or nearly kill a bleeding heart:
1- Plant it in clay soil. It likes soil that drains well, and is rich and moist.
2-- Don�t water it in dry periods.
3- Feed it ferilizer every week. It only needs fertilzer once each year, when in good growth.
4- Keep it in full sun. It will thrive if there is a little shade to protect it from the strongest rays of the sun.
In early spring, you�ll see the first signs of life
and around July 1st, you should see plenty of flowers.
As soon as it stops flowering, cut the plant back to about 6 inches.
Sprinkle the surrounding dirt with a fertilizer at that time.
You could be surprised to by seeing flowers again in late fall.
If the center of an older plant seems to be doing nothing, plan to dig it up that fall.
Get rid of the oldest part of the plant and replant.
Notice where the plant could be divided.
Now you have twice as many. Or, you can give one to a friend!
Bleeding hearts are hardly ever bothered by bug problems, lucky for us!
If you are hooked on cuttings for obtaining more plants, try spring-time for doing this.
