Penstemon Susan
Soft pink with a creamy white throat, carried in spires of narrow bells up strong upright stems. 'Susan' is a bushy garden penstemon with slightly deeper pink at the petal edges, which gives each flower a defined outline rather than a flat wash of colour. The leaves are narrow, glossy and mid green, and the plant holds most of them through a mild winter.
Pink at this height sits comfortably among other perennials without fighting them. Use it through cottage planting, in a group beside a path, or in a cutting bed, and let it run alongside catmint, salvia and low grasses. Bees and other long-tongued insects work the tubular flowers steadily right through the warm months.
Give it full sun and soil that drains freely. Penstemons come from dry country and the thing that kills them here is a wet winter in heavy ground, so add grit to clay or plant on a slight rise. Allow 50 cm between plants. Leave the old stems standing over winter as protection and tidy the plant in spring.
Grows to around 0.6 m tall and 0.6 m across.
Trimming: Wait until early spring, then cut each stem back to the lowest strong new shoot. Taking the top growth off in autumn exposes the crown to frost and wet, which is how most penstemons are lost.
Deadheading: Cut spikes out at the base as they finish rather than snipping individual flowers. The plant responds by pushing new spikes from lower down.
Fertilising: Feed lightly once in spring with a balanced fertiliser. Penstemons flower better on lean soil, and overfeeding gives you leaf and lax stems.
Watering: Steady water for its first season, then only during extended dry weather. Container plants need more attention, as they dry out and drop buds.
Pest Control: Aphids cluster on soft new growth in spring. Slugs and snails graze shoots at the base, particularly on plants cut back too early.
Disease Management: Powdery mildew appears on the leaves late in a humid season and is reduced by giving plants room. Crown and root rot follow winter wet, so drainage is the thing to get right at planting.
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