Friday, June 30, 2017

Western ironweed rescue attempt

Alas, the neighborhood herd of deer has increased this summer by two fawns. The other morning, James saw two does nibbling on a Texas lantana in the front yard. And we thought those were deer resistant. Ha!
 Anyway, they've been gnawing down our western ironweed as soon as it puts on new growth. This is a native that typically grows three feet high or more. Not this year! We originally purchased this plant in October 2014, and it'd been doing really well in the front yard. Until the deer found it. So James suggested that I transplant it. What I ended up doing was digging up a piece of it.
Western ironweed sends out rhizomes so what I did was cut off a piece at the mother base and dug out its long root. Then I potted it. Fingers crossed on this one, too. We have a woolly ironweed in the back yard that's really pretty. I searched my blog but couldn't find any photos of our western ironweed back when it grew tall and bloomed. (Bad me!) Stay tuned.

2 comments:

Shirley said...

Deer can be so destructive. You've given it a good chance. Interesting to know about the rhizomes. I have planted several Vernonia in the last few years and I'd love to have them spread out a bit.


James Hearn said...

There were five deer nibbling on the lantana...Not a big fan of deer.

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