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Japanese anemone
Tricia b
Posts: 40
Hi, does anyone know why my established Japanese anemone has hardly flowered this year and what flowers I had have already died off. The leaves are looking shrivelled despite watering from a water butt although new growth is underneath, but the whole plant looks a mess.
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Posts
Vine weevil?
Hmmmm, don't talk to me about vine weevil, as I'm at constant war with mine
With weevil damage, the plant will literally keel over and die, just like that.
Could be.
My anemones haven't all flowered this year. The ones I moved last autumn and this spring were sulking, so didn't yield. The ones I didn't touch from last year were fine.
They're quite stroppy if you move them...
Hi thanks for that, what does a vine weevil look like. I don't think it could be that as there are leaves underneath all of the messy ones that look quite fresh. Its just that there have been hardly any flowers and brown messy looking leaves. I did cut it right down early on and the new leaves after that looked great, so it is most probably the lack of water which has been in short supply here. Do I mulch now and what with. Also could the plants be old and maybe need splitting up or whatever they have been in quite a few years.
Anemones just self seed and spread. I've never divided any of mine, though maybe I ought to! I find that the less I touch them, move them etc, the better they behave. I ket mine die back naturally in autumn, then cut them at their base and leave well alone. They just pop up in spring and so their own thing again. Very tough plants really. Some of the leaves on mine, higher up, were looking bad this year due to red spider mite damage, but fresher leaves came up after I treated. Maybe yours were too dry and / or had a pest bothering them too? Vine weevils are black, flightless beetles that mainly come out at night and take notch shaped chunks out if leaves. They are all female and can lay hundreds of eggs every year, which turn into pale larvae/ grubs, about 1" long. These are what do the most damage, because they feed on plant roots and can kill a plant completely if they happen to sever a main trunk root. Normally pot plants are most at risk. I apply nematodes that control the situation, in spring and autumn and now have a virtually weevil free zone
If you cut it down early on, as you say, is there a chance that you cut back the potential flowering growth?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks for the really good advice everyone, I will add compost and see how they do next year. I haven't usually bothered with them too much until now so maybe they do need some TLC, I would be sad to lose them as they usually brighten up the garden a lot when other things are dying back.