Friday, May 25, 2018

Deadheading Salvia And Destructive Pests

I love Salvia. Snowhill Salvia below is my favorite. I have had Snowhill salvia at both my old house and it was one of the first plants I got for the new house. It is beautiful this year. I love how it has filled in to this beautiful 2 foot mound. It is such an easy plant that comes back year after year without a whole lot of fuss.
 I'm not sure I took much care in deadheading before this year. Maybe I didn't at all or maybe I just cut it back with sheers hoping for new flowers. Little did I know that there is a technique to it and I was probably cutting off new buds.
The flowers have started to dry up and brown, so it is time for a trim.

This did take a little time for a plant this size. I went looking for new buds to the outside of each flower stalk.

The arrows point to the two new buds, and the circle is where I will trim.
 I went through the whole plant and now I will wait for it to put on a new beautiful display of white flower stalks.

This year I bought some new colors.  Merleau Blue Salvia and New Dimension Rose Salvia. 
This one below, East Friesland Salvia, was purchased from a big box store that obviously didn't care for it well. Probably watered too harshly and didn't get enough sun and therefore got leggy and does not have good form. I imagine it will be as beautiful as the white one next year after some love. But I did trim it back as well as the others.
East Friesland Salvia
Merleau Blue Salvia - new buds.

New Dimension Rose Salvia about a week ago.
New Dimension Rose Salvia half trimmed.

In bug news. Did you know that fireflies are a predator of cutworms and slugs? I learned this on the Farmers Almanac website. I'm glad I saw a couple in the strawberry patch as I was cleaning it yesterday. 
I found between 5-10 of these very large creatures in the strawberry bed and lots of little ones too.

Ugly huh? My kids were very intrigued by these gross pests.
 Between my driveway and house I have a 3 foot by about 20 foot flower bed. I had it all imagined and planted with flower seedlings to attract butterflies and bees. Cosmos, persian carpet zinnias, blue bedder salvia (differnt from above), shasta daisy's, gaillardia, etc. These buggers below practically cleaned it all out! GRRR! And I had a LOT of extras to replace damaged plants with. They ate them all! I now have a different vision with more fully grown plants purchased from the nursery, including some of the salvias above.
Note to self. Start Flowers indoors much earlier so they can withstand the damage of slugs and cutworms. The grown plants out there are full of holes now but at least they are alive.

2 comments:

  1. Cheap play sand does a good job on slugs if you place it around the plant. They won't cross it. I hate those slimy critters.

    ReplyDelete