{"id":2214,"date":"2017-09-18T12:21:36","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T20:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2214"},"modified":"2017-09-18T12:28:26","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T20:28:26","slug":"ligularia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/ligularia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ligularia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bright<\/a>
Bright daisies at summer’s end.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have a space in a shady part of the garden where nothing succeeds except hellebores, and a \u201cvolunteer\u201d privet shrub that is the offspring of the line of privets that bounds the front of the garden.\u00a0 This semi-dead zone is probably semi-dead because of its proximity to a middle-aged maple tree that sucks up most of the moisture and nutrients in the soil.\u00a0 Every autumn the area is inundated with fallen maple leaves, and the rest of the time it is afflicted with tiny maple seedlings.\u00a0 I spend hours raking up the leaves, grubbing out the seedlings and meditating on why plants collapse and die at the mere sight of this difficult spot.<\/p>\n

What is the answer to this dead zone conundrum?\u00a0 It might be more hellebores, which are tough, deer resistant and bloom for six weeks in the spring.\u00a0 I could add in some of the large-leaf hostas, which survive almost anything, except slugs and hungry deer.\u00a0 I could resort to hostas, deer spray and slug bait, but I also crave fall interest, especially late summer and early fall flowers.\u00a0 Asters would be perfect, but even the redoubtable \u2018Alma Potschke\u2019 aster grows spindly in that space and produces few flowers.<\/p>\n

I considered defaulting to annuals, popped in and out at opportune times and regularly renewed with new plants throughout the growing season.\u00a0 This is a good strategy if you have lots of money, water religiously and remember to change out the annuals before they become stringy and uninspiring.\u00a0 I do not have that much faith in myself.<\/p>\n

I get my best ideas when I am either out walking or in the shower.\u00a0 I was stepping smartly through one of the streets near my house when I sighted something that might bring the dead zone to life\u2014a shade-tolerant perennial called ligularia.<\/p>\n

The ligularia I saw was most likely Ligularia dentata \u2018Britt Marie Crawford\u2019, a variety with large, rounded, toothed leaves that are bronze-purple on the undersides.\u00a0 My neighbors\u2019 ligularia was obviously happy and had formed large clumps in a shaded bed.\u00a0 In flower, the plants were about three feet tall, and sported clusters of orange-yellow daisies.\u00a0 The combination of dark green, purple and orange-yellow lit up the bed.\u00a0 I wondered if the plants could do the same in my dead zone.<\/p>\n

Ligularia gets its Latin name from \u201cligula\u201d which means \u201cstrap\u201d.\u00a0 In this case, the \u201cstrap\u201d is the elongated petals on the daisies.\u00a0 The notorious Roman emperor, Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, known to the world as Caligula, allegedly got his nickname from the same root.\u00a0 Caligula\u2019s parents frequently dressed the young emperor-to-be in miniature Roman army garb, complete with strapped sandals.\u00a0 Clearly the straps did nothing to improve Caligula, but the small strap-like petals of ligularia have a lot of garden potential.<\/p>\n

The most popular ligularia are \u2018Britt Marie Crawford\u2019 and another dentata, \u2018Desdemona\u2019, with leaves that are brown-bronze on both sides.\u00a0 Almost equally celebrated, Ligularia stenocephala \u2018The Rocket\u2019, grows up to five feet tall and four feet wide, with the same rounded, toothed foliage.\u00a0 \u2018The Rocket\u2019 takes off from a base of green leaves that lack the distinctive purple undersides of \u2018Britt Marie Crawford\u2019. \u00a0With daisy flowers that are born in showy spikes instead of simple clusters, \u2018The Rocket\u2019 provides a somewhat different garden profile than its less vertical relatives.\u00a0 All three ligularia bloom in late summer.<\/p>\n

Clearly, the statures of \u2018Britt Marie Crawford\u2019 and \u2018The Rocket\u2019 dictate that they be used as mid or back of the border plants, depending on the size of the garden.\u00a0 Both could grow in very large pots as well, but would probably need to be decanted and divided every few years.\u00a0 If your space is more confined, try \u2018The Rocket\u2019s offspring, \u2018Bottle Rocket\u2019, which grows only 2.5 feet tall and wide, but boasts the same showy leaves and flower spikes as its parent.<\/p>\n

Some shade gardeners whine incessantly about the lack of blooms in their planting schemes.\u00a0 If you consider yourself shade-afflicted, ligularia, also sometimes known as \u201cleopard plant\u201d, can offer flowery salvation.\u00a0 The only caveat is that the plants cannot abide dry shade.\u00a0 If they are not kept consistently moist, they droop alarmingly and die relatively quickly.\u00a0 I know this because it happened to me.<\/p>\n

Now I am a wiser gardener.\u00a0 Should I choose ligularia to liven up all or part of the dead zone, I will also invest in a soaker hose to keep it damp and comfortable.\u00a0 Of course, the added moisture will also make the nearby privet hedge grow with wild abandon and may even promote rapid development of the maple seedlings, but all gardeners have to take the bitter with the sweet.<\/p>\n

Ligularia is a genus of about 150 species, all but a few of which are native to parts of Asia.\u00a0 The genus was named by Alexandre Henri Gabriel Cassini, an early nineteenth century French botanist who specialized in the daisy family.\u00a0 Some ligularia species, like the tongue-twisting Ligularia przewalskii and the cultivars \u2018Osiris Fantasie\u2019 and \u2018Dragon\u2019s Breath\u2019, are grown primarily for their colorful, showy leaves, rather than the yellow-orange flowers they share with other members of the genus.\u00a0 While not as popular as \u2018The Rocket\u2019, they are available from specialist nurseries.<\/p>\n

Nature and I both abhor bare ground, so I will make a decision about ligularia and my dead zone within the next week.\u00a0 First, I will eliminate the volunteer privet, which is clouding my vision of the space.\u00a0 Then I will fill it with something a lot more satisfying.<\/p>\n

Find a selection of ligularia at ForestFarm, 14643 Watergap Rd, Williams, OR 97544;<\/p>\n

(541)-846-7269; www.forestfarm.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Free print catalog.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a space in a shady part of the garden where nothing succeeds except hellebores, and a \u201cvolunteer\u201d privet shrub that is the offspring of the line of privets that bounds the front of the garden.\u00a0 This semi-dead zone is probably semi-dead because of its proximity to a middle-aged maple tree that sucks up … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[1719,1720,1430,970,257,1717,1716,1242,1718,126],"class_list":["post-2214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-britt-marie-crawford","tag-the-rocket-ragwort","tag-compositae","tag-daisy-family","tag-deer-resistant-plants","tag-leopard-plant","tag-ligularia","tag-moisture-loving-plants","tag-shade-perennials","tag-shade-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2214"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2221,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions\/2221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}