I mean Joe-Pye Weed, not the Penn State football icon. Joe Pye or Eupatorium is also known as boneset or snakeroot, supposedly named for a Native American medicine man who once traveled through New England with his herbal remedies. It's another plant I'd never heard of until a couple of years ago.
Now, dare I say it, it's one of my favorites. (Sooner or later, everything's a favorite!)
I have some growing in several places in my garden. This is to be applauded. Great plant. It loves the sun, looks positively ethereal when massed and the pinkish flowers explode in a cloud, and butterflies love it.
But. BUT. When will I learn not to plant something that's going to get very tall in front of things that are shorter? My Joe Pye is growing along the pathway, in front of salvias and roses and other stuff that soon will be obscured by this unusual native.
Last summer it didn't get too tall. Already this spring, it's huge. I was admiring it last night and then I realized I'd done it again ...
Also last night I transplanted some coneflowers that I'd put in the middle of the garden a few weeks ago when nothing else was beyond knee-high. Now that the cleomes are going gonzo in there, threatening to overtake and squeeze the life out of my beautiful 'Sundown' Echinacea, I had to get the latter out of there.
The experts always say to think ahead. Don't plant that small holly tree in a spot that can't accommodate a giant mature holly. But who thinks like that? If you're like me, you're so excited about your new plant, you put it in the ground where it looks nice, wherever that may be. And then months later, or the following year, you realize you've - once again - been a dope.
As long as we're in confession mode ...just last weekend, I bought some new basil plants. I already had a lot, but pesto madness comes upon me every summer and I worried that there wouldn't have enough. So I bought several more and planted them on the edge of the vegetable bed, with some verbena, marigolds, snapdragons and wave petunias. The idea, new this year, was to make a colorful flower border around the veggies.
Ack! The basil's only a few inches tall now, but pretty soon - guess what - it'll tower over the other flowers. What was I thinking?
I'm going to have to move that, too. Hmmm. Maybe Joe Pye could use some - shorter - company. In the front this time.
