Stake No More

June 13th, 2017

Here’s a job you can largely eliminate if you’re trying to cut work in the garden – staking perennials.

These coneflowers look like straitjacketed criminals after being tied up from flopping.

By going with some of the new compact varieties that are now available or by doing a spring cutback of the floppers you already have, you can get away from the stakes, cages and rings that are otherwise needed to head off an unruly late-summer garden.

A lot of perennials – especially old-fashioned ones – grow 3 to 4 feet tall and flop or lean from the weight of their flowers. A wind storm or a heavy rain often contributes to the floppiness.

Once a tall plant flops, it’s hard to prop it back up without snapping stems or creating a tied-up bundle that looks like a straitjacketed criminal.

Some of the most common floppers/leaners include peonies, dahlias, gladioli, heliopsis, Russian sage, mums, asters, boltonia, Japanese anemone, goldenrod, yarrow, helenium, sedum and sometimes lilies.

If you have floppers and want to keep them, now’s the time to get your support into place – before they flop.

Another trick I’ve used for years is cutting back tall late bloomers in spring.

Most people know to do that to mums. It’s called “pinching back,” although you don’t have to pinch every stem – one by one – with your fingers as the term indicates. Just shearing the whole plant in half is fine.

This sedum is being cut back by a half in late May.

This cutback, which makes plants more compact later in the year, can be done to plants other than mums. You can’t do it to earlier-blooming perennials that are in bud or about to flower (peonies and salvia, for example), but you can do it to species that flower in August or after.

These include asters, goldenrod, boltonia, Japanese anemone, sedum and Russian sage.

Shear any of those back by one-third to one-half now (or no later than end of June). They’ll look chopped for a few weeks, but new leaves will grow, and the plants will end up more compact and non-floppy later. They’ll also bloom slightly later.

You can eliminate both cutbacks and staking by leaning toward non-leaners with your new selections.

Plant-breeders know gardeners are looking for maintenance-saving ideas, and so one key trend lately has been developing plants with small sizes.

A lot of these newcomers manage to pack as much bloom – sometimes even more – into smaller packages.

Peek-a-Blue is one of the most compact Russian sages to come along yet.
Credit: Walters Gardens

The best example I’ve seen is Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia).

This plant is a heat- and drought-tough, trouble-free perennial (not a true sage, though) that produces spires of light purple for nearly three months from July through September. It’s an excellent choice for a sunny border, a sunny bank or really, any sunny garden.

If it has a downside, it’s that the straight species can grow 4 feet tall into a sort of floppy, rangy shrub-looking plant. Some gardeners don’t like that loose or “messy” look.

Breeders took a stab at shrinking it several years ago with a cultivar called ‘Little Spire.’ It was supposed to top out at 2 feet and need no pinching to head off flopping.

Maybe my soil is a little too nice for it, but the ‘Little Spire’ I tried grew more like 3 feet and still flopped.

Since then, at least four newer cultivars have come along that are touted as being 2 feet tall or less.

‘Rocketman’ is the first of these, followed by one I’ve seen in action at only about 18 inches tall – Peek-a-Blue – and another one that’s supposed to check in at 18 to 24 inches – Lacey Blue.

Shortest of all is a new one called Little Lace. That one is listed at growing only 15 inches. I haven’t seen Little Lace in a garden yet, but if it blooms as well as other Russian sages and stays that height, it ought to become a top seller.

Shasta daisy ‘Snowcap’ gets full-size bloom on foot-tall plants.

Another example is Shasta daisy. The long-used favorite – ‘Becky’ – can easily hit 3 to 4 feet tall. The stems are usually strong enough to prevent flopping, but that’s still a hefty size that makes the plant vulnerable to leaning after a wind storm.

Newer varieties have come along that grow more like 2 to 3 feet tall, ‘Crazy Daisy,’ for example, is a 3-footer I like for its double-petaled flowers, and ‘Goldfinch’ is a nice 2-footer with soft-yellow flowers.

‘Little Miss Muffet’ and ‘Snowbound’ check in at around 18 inches tall, while ‘Snowcap’ and ‘Snow Lady’ give the same big, showy flowers on plants that stay only a foot tall. No need to stake or pinch any of those.

Check those plant tags before you buy this spring, and you’ll often find compact choices next to straight species or older, taller options.

A few more examples of good shorties are ‘Marcus’ salvia (12 inches), Magic Purple and Kickin’ Purple aster (15 inches), ‘Pretty Lady Diana’ Japanese anemone (18 inches), ‘Pumila’ and the Visions series of Chinese astilbe (15 to 20 inches), ‘Fireball’ and ‘Petite Delight’ beebalms (15 to 18 inches), ‘Little Goldstar’ black-eyed susan (15 inches), ‘Kit Cat’ and ‘Blue Ice’ catmint (15 inches), Little Lemon goldenrod (15 inches), ‘Baby Joe’ Joe Pye weed (28 to 36 inches), the Rock Candy series of penstemon (12 to 15 inches), Pixie Meadowbrite purple coneflower (18 inches), and ‘Neon’ and ‘Brilliant’ sedum (18 inches).