Thank you for letting me know what to do with Liatris stalks. Every time my father looks at my collection of critter repellant sprays he thinks it's funny to comment, "Gee, glad we don't have to worry about any 'armadillas' getting our bushes". And you really have them! Believe it or not the individual fence circles my father puts around his rose bushes work better than trying to enclose the entire Butterfly Garden. As soon as the Russell Lupine Hybrids (which haven't bloomed to date) started to throw out foliage they started to be eaten so we put a rabbit fence "cage" around it. Same with the echinacea. Now only the foliage that grows outside the fence circle gets eaten. This morning we're making rabbit fence circles for all the plants that were ravished by a critter. That's New England Aster, New York Aster, Great Blue Lobelia, Liatris Spicata, Gaillardia, Coreopsis Grandiflora and Coreopsis Moonbeam. Late this afternoon when I finished trimming all the boxwood and hollies along his driveway I came in to rest but looked out toward the butterfly garden because I thought I saw a yellow butterfly flitting away from the garden. As I'm looking I see a glaring absence of more Liatris foliage and ran out there. Little buggers got another plant but at least left 1 bud. Everyone thinks I'm crazy and wasting my time trying to grow anything but boxwood and yellow "sundrops" which no one nibbles but I became obsessed with making this Butterfly Garden in memory of my late Mom and things just spiraled out of control around the rest of his property with other little gardens. She loved her "flutterbies" as she called them everytime she saw one. I have no idea what I thought I was going to do with over 50 Cosmos seedlings but glad I had the extras when the first ones I planted out where eaten to nubs...LOL. The winter sowing forum got me so excited I went overboard on sowing things (a lot of spring sowing) without enough room to plant them out. Now I've got water hungry containers of every size and shape all over the place with little plants that need attention! I was reduced to raiding my recycling center for perfectly good nursery pots people had discarded that I washed out with bleach and spray painted burgundy so they'd match the doors on Dad's house since he didn't want it looking like a farm nursery around his house. I'm lucky my Dad let me have the run of his yard to have a chance to garden at all since I live in a condo but spend so much time here with him I needed the diversion. Saturday I finally had all my little seedlings and other gardening paraphenalia out of the garage so he can put his car back in there as he was getting testy about his car getting full of pine needles, bird droppings and plain old dirt for the last few months! But, hey, the Cubs won a game Friday so hope springs eternal! I can't wait til July-October when most of the butterfly plants bloom. The monarda, yarrow and milkweed buds are just starting to open and the colors are going to be glorious. I'd just be so excited if I saw the milkweed, dill, parsley or fennel being eaten cause then there'd be a chance a butterfly laid some eggs and the caterpillars were eating them up! I'll be out there with a magnifying glass checking for them...LOL. Thanks for giving me the boost I needed, Donna. Leslie

I was trying to think of how I'd describe it and found this picture from Prairie Moon. I know that my L. spicatas push themselves up so that part of the "bulb" is out of the ground (sort of like iris rhizomes). Maybe, if all else fails you could just plant the entire bareroot mass and let them sort themselves out. They divide very easily and seem to be forgiving plants in general, so you should do fine with them. Hope the pic link works and that someone can give you better advice! ; ) kent Here is a link that might be useful: Prairie Moon pic of bareroot L. spicata

To be honest, I'm not too sure what you're referring to when it comes to the leaves. In the process of dinking around a bit online... the impression I'm getting is that how obvious the bracts in the lower part of the inflorescence are is dependent mostly on how far down the inflorescence flowering has progressed. For instance, in the pictures of Liatris pycnostachya on this page and the second picture down of Liatris spicata on this page, the bracts are fairly obvious in both inflorescences when the lower flowers haven't opened yet. On the other hand, in the top picture of Liatris pycnostachya on this page and in the top picture of Liatris spicata on this page, the lower bracts are inconspicuous on both species once those lower flowers have opened. On the other hand, the differences in phyllaries shown on those pages are fairly obvious... Patrick Alexander

Why don't you just plant them outside and water them in? I don't imagine your ground could be frozen yet.