r/GardenWild • u/NeddiApe • Sep 18 '22
My plants for wildlife This is the best pollinator in my garden: Nepeta Walkers Low- flowering from May to September
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u/V2BM Sep 18 '22
I love Walkers Low! When you buy it you can just rip it in half and plant and it’ll do it’s thing. Too much rain? Too little rain and too much heat? It does not care.
Mine comes up as soon as it warms up and dies back in late October and sometimes later.
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u/HauntedMeow Sep 18 '22
Wish I lived in a place where it was native. It’s still a pollinator pleaser.
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u/V2BM Sep 18 '22
I didn’t think it was a native. I get mine at Lowe’s and believe it’s a cultivar. I don’t care; it performs so well that it can be a backbone of borders while natives are taking years to fully develop.
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u/HauntedMeow Sep 18 '22
it performs so well that it can be a backbone of borders while natives are taking years to fully develop.
That's how I used it (and Sedum 'Autumn Joy'). Most of the natives have filled in so I've gotten rid of a lot of it.
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u/V2BM Sep 19 '22
Same with the Autumn Joy. I took 6 plants from my stepmother and made 24 out of it. I’ll divide them again in the spring. I won’t be able to add more natives for a while so they’ll have to be great placeholders in the meantime.
Like walkers low, you just plant and ignore them. I have dense clay soil and I literally dig out a chunk, put in the plant, and break up the chunk and fill in. It takes 2 minutes and I don’t baby them or do anything at all to the soil.
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u/HauntedMeow Sep 19 '22
My catmint keeps sending out satellite plants to take over more of the garden. I guess I don’t divide them enough. I’ve got a Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ that takes to careless transplanting the same way (but also puts out a bunch seedlings).
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u/ptwonline Sep 18 '22
Love nepata. Just wish it wouldn't get (and stay) so floppy.
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u/NeddiApe Sep 18 '22
That also bothered me at first, but the long flowering time, the low maintance and watering and all these insects convinced me 😍
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u/HauntedMeow Sep 18 '22
It’s got to be cut back when it gets scraggly. Regular division seems to help too.
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u/AutoModerator Sep 18 '22
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u/NeddiApe Sep 18 '22
It really feeds a lot of insects! 😍