Worth the Bother

The middle of summer is a good time to talk about plants that are worth the bother, and those that aren't.  The red lily leaf beetle, a non-native, infests true lilies (not day lilies) in the US Northeast to such a degree that experts recommend not putting them in your garden.  The beetle eats all of the leaves, thus robbing the plant of its food source - chlorophyll.   Perhaps twenty years ago, before the arrival of the beetle, I planted several varieties of lilies.  Unfortunately, I do not remember their names.  Some of them have done well, although not as well as they used to.  My husband sprays them with pesticide in the spring. I believe that parasitic wasps, one of their only predators, have been imported from Europe, and may be controlling them naturally.

As you can see, the lilies that have survived are lovely.  They are one of my favorite plants.

A plant that I will probably get rid of in parts of my garden is phlox paniculata, or garden phlox.  The plant has a lot going for it - beautiful white, pink or magenta flowers in mid to late summer with a lovely fragrance.  What it has against it is mildew.  I have some phlox growing now that are mildew free and blooming profusely.  Others, despite careful pruning early in the summer, are full of mildew and have not started blooming yet.  I may change my mind if I get a good bloom, though.

One last note for this week.  I just dropped my oldest daughter off in Fargo, North Dakota for graduate school.  I noticed that there were no azaleas or rhododendrons - clearly the winters are too long and harsh for them to survive.  White hydrangeas were plentiful, thought, and a deep red shrub that I did not recognize.  I would have expected more prairie grasses, but saw few gardens with them.