A little backyard humor from
"The Duke of Dirt"
(aka.. my master gardener Dad!)
Companion Planting Clematis and Snowball Bush
Ok fellow gardeners in my never ending search to find easier way to garden, here is an article on companion planting. I got real tired of building or buying trellis for my Clematis plants which do well here in Colorado. So I decided to plant some Clematis starts under one of my large snowball bushes. As you can see from the photo the experiment worked. It worked so well that I plan on doing more of these companion plantings.
This fall I will plant some Clematis near some Butterfly bushes we have to see if they will climb up and spruce up these bushes. The attached photo was after we had a huge hail storm so the contrasting flowers looked even better before the hail storm.
I also have companion planted Iris around my Peonies to hold them up. I assume I am not the only one who hates to see those beautiful Peonies flowers fall over. I built wood cages to support them and that worked fairly well. But then I got to thinking that I could use the excess Irises I have to plant around the Peonies. Irises are nitrogen fixing plants so my thinking was that the Iris would give the Peonies a nice shot of nitrogen and hold them up as well. First the Irises bloom and when they start to fade the Peonies take off.
This worked like a charm. Never have we had better looking Peonies are Irises.
Let me know if you folks have any interesting companion plantings that might work here in Colorado. Just send any responses to info@Howtogardenadvice.com.
The Duke of Dirt.
Note: the advice and information contained herein is based upon our experience and study.
As with any advice, please apply at your own discretion.