On Clay and Wasps, Redux.

10 years ago

Hello Y'all,

There is apprently a feature that doesn't allow me to reply twice to my own post? Huh. Well, I'll post some here because I still need help. I am very much the amateur.

Taking up where the last thread was snipped.

On accepting wasps as part of nature:
Oh no. I cannot stand idly by and watch them destroying 3 seasons of work. I've order a 'bug vaccuum' that has a small head, powerful suction and an electronic 'zapper' at the base. Just now I went out and there were SEVEN masps and ONE monarch. That's going to change. Even if my solution is impractical, I won't feel helpless.

The ever present clay challenge:
That clay is still a big problem. Butterfly bushes planted last year are fine, but the ones planted this spring are dieing and I can't seem to reverse the process. When it rains hard for 3 days, as it just got through doing, the water just stays. I had a perfect illustration. I took up a full grown hydrangia bush, roots and all, with the intention of putting in a dwarf bottle brush. Then the rains came. It sat there like a punch bowl for days, full of water (the hole). It is drained/evaporated now - but as late as last afternoon it was a punchbowl.

I've an idea I will test with one of the b-bushes. I will get some of that black landscapers stuff (they use it like mulch, keep weeds down? y'all probably know it) lay that from the house to the driveway with at least a foot to either side of a butterfly bush. Around the butterfly bush I wil take one of those plastic saucers (my gardening terminology is weak)that are put under pots, and cut a large hole in it - about all of the flat part - and put it upside down around the b-bush. This should keep water from running down the slight slope that runs from house to driveway from getting to my b-bush. In this way I hope to regulate how much water it gets. I'll cover the black 'stuff' with a layer of mulch. Cross your fingers!

All advice welcomed!!! I'm hopelessly adrift and in despair!
Pano

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Comments (6)

mauch1
10 years ago
I didn't see your original post, but I think a better solution (or at least more traditional), would be to create raised beds (hilled up soil, that way some of the root system will always be above the water and allow the roots to get air. I'm not talking about wood bordered beds, but just hilled up soil (say 3 - 6 inches above the base level, and then some mulch on those beds that will help keep the soil from drying and cracking (the other problem with clay soil), and stop the beds from eroding away.
Panoply76
Original Author
10 years ago
That's a good idea, but I've got many other plants in that flower bed. Ones whose roots, I guess, don't go so deep. Here is what is doing well in those beds that kill B-Bushes: young Lantana, milkweed, fennell, dill, parslet, an unidentified plant that was there whn I moved in; there approx. 6 of them and they bloom for a very long time. Of course, the new daylilies are OK. What MAY work is getting some bricks and building a little fortress around where I'd like a B-Bush and build the soil up in there, trusting to the bricks and mulch to prevent erosion.
So that's the traditional way? No one told me!

Thanks Mauch!
Pano
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ericwi
10 years ago
If you can grow all of those other plants, I don't see the necessity of growing butterfly bush. Some plants do well in a given spot, and others turn belly up. That is the nature of gardening, for all of us. Some folks have so much trouble containing butterfly bush that they consider it to be an invasive weed. Count your blessings.
Lisa_H OK
10 years ago
On the reply issue..you can change the subject of the posting and then you can post again. Sometimes I add a "II" or something to the end of the subject. I think it is probably a spam control measure.

Lisa
eclecticcottage
10 years ago
This part of your post made me think "Butterfly bushes planted last year are fine, but the ones planted this spring are dieing", perhaps you need to wait a few weeks for it to dry up a bit, then plant? Maybe once they have established their roots, they will be ok, like those you planted last year.
eclecticcottage
10 years ago
This part of your post made me think "Butterfly bushes planted last year are fine, but the ones planted this spring are dieing", perhaps you need to wait a few weeks for it to dry up a bit, then plant? Maybe once they have established their roots, they will be ok, like those you planted last year.