The first 2 are Nemesia. They may self seed, but if you’re in a warm area they may come up again next year. I always collect the seeds and sow in March as you would lobelia, pricking out in little groups.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Thank you so much Lyn, Nemesia! I like to know the names. I will collect the seeds and sow them in March as you say. What does it mean to prick them out in little groups?
Will do re.the Aquilegia, it will be a pleasure to get those old leaves off.
Do you think it's good to leave the salvia as-is? Last year I didn't know at all what I was doing, and I found the new green leaves had got black sludgy stuff in them like mould or rot. This year's looks OK but I don't know if they need the space and air perhaps, from cutting off the old plant.
I would deadhead the lavender bushes where necessary ( any dead heads of flowers can be cut back). I generally trim ours in August ( but never cut back into brown wood) so that it never becomes straggly and retains a nice shape
Leave the salvia as it is. If they’ve rotted away by next Spring you can trim them down again. if you left the flowers on your Aquilegia you could find lots of baby ones next year, you’ll recognise those, they’re exactly like the parent plant.
The Nemesia seed heads will look like little pale brown purses, sometimes you don’t get many on a stalk. If yours is a type that gets seeds they will look like the picture below. Be careful when you pick them because the little purse is full of seeds. I can’t resist saving them, they’re easy to grow and very pretty.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Does your aquilegia typically keep its foliage all season? I haven't seen mine since May and now I'm afraid that means they're gone for good! Hopefully they put out a few seeds before they disappeared.
Songbird-2 I will do that, I'll just cut the lavender heads off the ones that have finished flowering.
Then when they have all finished flowering, I'll cut into the bushes and reduce the size, by about a third or so, is this a good idea?
Last year I cut the lavender right down to the wood in late autumn. They then grew back to what you see in the photo. But from what you say it's better to cut them more moderately -will they produce better flowers when treated like this? (too much of a shock to be cut back to wood perhaps)
With the Aquilegia I now see there's quite an advantage to leaving the old flowers so they make seeds (assuming that is how they do it), so next time I'll leave them longer.
Thanks so much for the Nemesia picture, I wanted to know what the seeds would look like and was wondering. Those little purses are adorable! I will look out for them and save the seeds and plant some of it in spring.
SYinUSA, yes I think so. I had aquilegia flowers around May time like you, then after they flowered they didn't look so good and I cut all the old plant down to ground level, and new stems and leaves all sprouted up again, but no flowers. Then those leaves went brown as you see in the photo with fresh new ones coming up again from the base.
So they are keeping themselves in foliage but flowered only once this year.
But I now realise I should have left the old flowers longer!
Aquilegias don't repeat-flower, but they do self-sow prolifically if you leave the dead flowers on. Often the offspring are different colours from the parent though, and they can tend to revert to a muddy pink shade over the years. What I do is pull out any that are a colour I don't much like as soon as the colour shows, and leave the rest to set seed.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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I always collect the seeds and sow in March as you would lobelia, pricking out in little groups.
if you left the flowers on your Aquilegia you could find lots of baby ones next year, you’ll recognise those, they’re exactly like the parent plant.
The Nemesia seed heads will look like little pale brown purses, sometimes you don’t get many on a stalk. If yours is a type that gets seeds they will look like the picture below. Be careful when you pick them because the little purse is full of seeds. I can’t resist saving them, they’re easy to grow and very pretty.