What am I doing wrong with my Delphiniums??
CraighB
Posts: 758
Hi guys,
I posted a while back because my delphiniums were on the small side. They are now just starting to flower but they are only 2.5ft! The variety I have is Summer Skies and is the pacific giant variety which is supposed to grow to 5-6ft.
I grew these from seed last year and I allowed them to have one flower spike. This is their second year and to give them the best start I mulched them with compost and fed them with blood fish and bone. They are in full sun all day and I allowed each plant to have 3 flower spikes this year. What am I doing wrong? is it simply because they are only in their second year or do delphiniums usually grow to full size by now?
I visited some gardens today and theirs were around 6ft!! If anyone could give me some advice that would be really great 
thank you
Posts
Well well I did get them from EBay however the colour is correct. The thing is they are now flowering so I doubt they will get that much bigger and also there are not many flower buds either Anyway so even if they were taller it wouldn't look that great. I'd say only maybe 10-15 buds?
yea I will take a pic when I'm home
Im glad it's not just me then with small delphiniums. The reason I was concerned is because I've read they are quite short lived plants and last 2-3 years and since mine are in their second year I wondered if they would even come back next year without them reaching their proper height.
How long does it usually take for them to reach their maximum height? Can they do that in their first year or is it a case of waiting until the plant has been established for a few years?
Lol thanks for that. It is a bit disheartening when you put all that hard work into the garden and then your plants come up and get ready to flower and your like 'oh'
Feels quite disappointing and then to read they are short lived perennials it made me think we'll what was the point in that! 
But I suppose that's gardening for you and some years are going to be better than others. Damn British weather!
This is my delphinium.
Aym no I live in the Midlands
The delphiniums you mention, Craig, are listed as Summer Skies Group and Pacific Giants Mixed, that means that they are not propagated vegetatively from named cultivars and can turn out to be a mixture of colours and sizes when grown from seed.
Thanks for that info aym. very useful
Do you thin out the shoots or do you let it have as many shoots as it produces?
That's very interesting to know! I think if I buy anymore in the future I will definately look more into the varieties. To be honest at he time I knew nothing about gardening at all so I picked the one I liked the look of best!
Lantana,
when I sowed my seeds i covered the seed tray with a black plastic bag and put them in a cupboard and they germinated quickly! I was very surprised as I read that they are not easy to grow from seed.
Lantana, the Telegraph article re the delphinium stems is describing how to propagate clematis by cuttings, or vegetatively, this is the way to obtain an exact replica of the parent plant, necessary if you grow named culivars, for example we grow delphinium Volkerfrieden, from seeds the plants do not come true.
As the stems of delphinium matures and thickens, they are hollow and will not root as cuttings, so best to use the thin, new, tips for cutting material.
Some clematis are like this ( same family as delphiniums, ( Ranunculacae )
To put it bluntly, Craig, your delphiniums are mongrels, but we all know that some of the nicest of the lot are mongrels, don't we ?
Keep on sowing the seeds, you never know what may turn up.