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Plants Prefer: Bergenias (Bergenia cordifolia) are plants from Siberia and Mongolia. As such they are perfectly happy in temperatures of - 30°F, but when exposed to winds at this point, leaves will turn brown and burn at the edges. Plants are evergreen above 0°F. and turn a reddish bronze when colder. They prefer partial shade in the summer and a soil that is well-drained but moist with humus or leaf mold. In such a spot it is an excellent groundcover. Space plants 12 inches apart. As a bonus, they flower with rose-pink, waxy blossoms in spring.
Impoverishment "of the soil, and most particularly nitrogen deficency, is one of the most common causes of moss in lawns, and fortunately the most easily remedied. If you have ever noticed where certain mosses grow naturally, on old house roofs, along uncared for fences, on waste lots and even in the crevices of brick and flagstone paving, among other infertile places, you will realize that at least some of these lowly plants thrive where there is not enough nourishment to support other plants, not even weeds. It is not so much that mosses prefer impoverished soils but at least they can get along in them and in more fertile ones they are unable to survive the competition of more vigorous plants, such as lawn grasses.
O. rosea is unusual in that the 2/3-inch-wide flowers are rose colored instead of yellow. Plants grow about 14 inches high and should be spaced 9 inches apart. This species is not hardy north of Zone 7 but grows readily from seed.
The catchflies (Silene spp.) have three family members that open at night. Two are weedy and should go on the outer fringes of the garden, and the third is little-known and charming. They are all treated as annuals and have no special demands as to soU. Plants prefer full sun. |
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