Love Hate Relationships of a Lenten Rose Garden

An end of a perennial cycle and a beginning of a perennial cycle. 

Today in my Lenten Rose garden the strong hardy summer ground cover foliage is done.  It looks bad and it's hard to watch but I know in two weeks it's gone and nubile flowers will be all we see.  On this plant, this year, the bouquet is massive.  I'm dubbing this plant trophy size.

I hate this time of the year.  Everything looks so bad in the garden. Yesterday.

Today it's not so bad and I know in two weeks you won't see a trace of last years beautiful round.  I love this time of the year, in two weeks.

2 Year Old Lenten Roses Are Back in Stock

I'm so happy to announce that our inventory of 2 year olds' are back.  They look great and they are ready for sale.

Last winter the Arctic Vortex, what ever that is, killed our entire greenhouse inventory of 2 year olds. We were just not prepared for ten days in a row of - 6 degree - below freezing weather.  I've lived in Athens, Ga for 50 years now and I cannot remember a winter as cold as it was last year.  Ugh!

Well, we've recovered from our loss and you can be sure, this winter we are prepared.  We'll be winterizing our greenhouses and stand guard.  Another Arctic Vortex......bring it on!

Ok, let's forget the past and get back to the present and future.  Our 2 year olds' are beautiful and ready to ship.  Look at the root systems.  Oh yeah.......they're ready.

  

The fall is a very good time of the year to put these 2 year olds' into the ground soil.  Here's a little tip.  Take a sharp knife and slit the roots down each of the four sides and fan the roots out like a ballerina's tutu.  Then plant them.  They don't need to go very deep.  2-3 inches.  We call this, tickling the roots.  It helps stimulate much faster root growth and sends the new growth off in the right direction.  

Give them a little blanket of mulch to insulate them from the cold of the upcoming winter and keep them watered until it starts to freeze.  And do remember that Lenten Roses take 4 years to flower for the first time so these guys will need another full year of growth before they flower but that's not a bad thing because by getting them into your gardens at this age they will have plenty of time to get comfortable in their new home and start filling out.  By the time they are ready to flower they will be large and lush.  Space them 2-3 feet apart.  Trophy size plants will grow 3 feet in diameter and produce up to 100 flowers each.  Wow!

By the way, we're selling these for less than $4 each - a Bakers Dozen (13) for $48.  That's way below what retail nurseries charge for the same plant.  

There is a lot more information about the beautiful Lenten Rose on my web site.  Check it out.

LentenRose.com

Cheers.  Enjoy.

Summer Ground Cover and the Lenten Rose

Looking for a beautiful ground cover plant for your summer shade garden?  Here one, the hardy Lenten Rose.  After it blooms early early in the spring (with the daffodils), this early blooming shade perennial puts on new growth and morphs into a lush dark green ground cover .  Oh, and did I mention they are deer proof :-)

In the summer their leaves become tough and serrated and stay that way through the summer and into the early fall.  This is their no nonsense motherly design to protect their seeds that had fallen from their flowers at the end of their flower cycle.  In the late spring the flower cycle ends.  The seed pods of the flower mature and drop their seeds.  Then the flower stalks decompose the new summer ground cover foliage begins to grow.  By early summer the leaves are dark green and tough.  Mamma says, 'don't mess with my baby seeds!' :-)

If you have a few minutes and would like to learn more about this beautiful shade perennial, have a look at my web site.  Click on the Lenten Rose Almanac tab.  A few years ago I made a short video for every month of the year to chronicle the perennial cycle of this extraordinary plant.  The videos are pretty amateur but I had to do it......somebody had to do it.  Well anyway, enjoy and if you have any questions drop me a line at richard@LenenRose.com 

Lenten Roses - The Power of the Flower

LentenRose.com is located in the Piedmont of N.E. Georgia (USA).  That's important when you are comparing the perennial cycle of the Lenten Rose throughout the country.  Our flower cycle down here is just about over.  We have been harvesting seed for the last 3 weeks and starting this week we will be cutting the flower stalks out of the plant before we ship them out.  

Watch the April video of the Lenten Rose Almanac located on my web site.  There is a lot of good info regarding the flower cycle in that video.

It's not very pretty but it is part of the natural cycle of the plant.  Once the flower has dropped its seed you can go ahead and cut out the flower stalks.  They're just going to decompose anyway.  Might as well cut them out.

It's time now for the summer ground cover foliage to take center stage.  The broad, dark green, serrated leaves create beautiful shade cover and prickly protection for the fallen seed.  Later in the year, in the late fall, these leaves will start to lay over and decompose,  giving the seeds an additional layer of nutrients before they break ground in Jan/Feb.  

.....the power of the flower.

Lenten Roses Make Wonderful Cut Flowers

Lenten Roses make wonderful cut flowers but there are a few things you should know.  It is important to look at the flowers and try not to use them as cut flowers until after the flowers have been pollenated and the little seed pods have begun to form in the center of the flower.

You will notice that once the flower has been pollenated and the seed pods begin to grow, the flower stalk grows taller and more ridged.  The purpose here, in nature, is to allow the flower to grow tall enough to ensure that when the seeds ripen and are ready to fall from the flower, the flower will lean over so that the seeds will fall to the outside of the mother plant where the seeds will have the best chance of survival.

Lenten Roses to the people 

The picture below has 40 stems.  Each stem has 4-7 flowers........that's a lot of flowers :-)

Enjoy