i planted 2 coreopsis plants 2 years ago. they were supposed to be 12-18" at maturity. they bloomed a little the first year (solid yellow blooms) with short, ferny and bushy foilage.

last year i divided and sent some to xt (maybe that was the end of the first season...can't recall)...killed off one of them so i divided the remaining one and replanted in the other spot (where i killed one...don't know if it was me or the bunnies honestly?) so last year i had some scrubby ground-cover-esque coreopsis.

it was honestly the least exciting plant in my front garden. i was considering taking them out and composting them because they were just...well...not exciting. i had planted them according to their (supposed) mature size of 18" and the tiny scrubby stature was way out of place (maybe 8" tall?)

well...then there is this year. i have MULTIPLE coreopsis plants. the shortest one is 5 FEET tall. i have one that is over 7 FEET tall. i have one growing where i NEVER planted a coreopsis (about 6 feet from the nearest one i planted and in btw the two is a butterfly plant, a STRONG and HUGE wormwood, various groundcovers and 2 salvias.)

today i moved the out-of-place one (it was 5' tall and in the FRONT of the bed...waaaay out of place amongst salvia and groundcover :lol: ) to the back of the bed...it'll probably stop blooming but will come back next year. i may not have gotten all the roots though...which means another coreopsis in that place NEXT year (or later this year). i've already cut one back because it was so tall it fell over :rolleyes:

what is going on? anyone else have this issue? the mature blooms are different too...yellow with brown rings around the center. definitely still coreopsis, not a doubt in my mind...but it seems the mature plants are very different from what i thought i bought 2 years ago.

it's weird.

haha...so my practical joke has come to fruition full bloom...haha!!!















now that would be a funny joke to play on someone...change out their plants. unfortunately i've never been to tracey's house so i can't be to blame.

wow, mine has never gotten that big! I do know that if it is tall enough to fall you should stake it. Generally speaking the tallest variety should be close to 3 ft, so I think you've got some mutant plants there LOL!

I'd love to see a pic!

haha...so my practical joke has come to fruition full bloom...haha!!!



now that would be a funny joke to play on someone...change out their plants. unfortunately i've never been to tracey's house so i can't be to blame.

snort.


lmao!

the flowers (very pretty):

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/snugglbond/DSC_0009-1.jpg

that front bed:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/snugglbond/DSC_0004.jpg

perspective (morgan is up to my mouth and i'm 5'4"):
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/snugglbond/DSC_0001-1.jpg

freak plant:

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/snugglbond/DSC_0002-2.jpg

oh and i'm working on that bed. it's always a work in progress. i'm trying to get lirope to grow all around the edges (while not getting bit by fire ants trying to plant it...i have a TON of it all around my property) to hold in my mulch from falling on the bricks.

it's not really a groomed bed...i have several salvias, wormwood that is growing like mad, lavender that is blooming finally and a bunch of other stuff. i've also got echinacea in there but it's not really getting very tall and isn't blooming yet. various groundcovers up front that are slowly (over time) filling in. day lillies too.

i'm hoping this year i'll not be too lazy to get some black-eyed susans from mamaxt. i've been meaning to since we bought the house :joker: i use purple and yellow/orange in the front.

i have a varient on salvia in the rear center but nothing seems to grow very tall there...i may grow sunflowers there this year to fill in the emptiness...that's a thought.

yeah, you've got some really big stuff there lol. The flowers are so pretty!

What you have there might be a coreopsis, or it might be a heliopsis... our horticulturist isn't in the office today - otherwise I'd have a quick positive identification for you.

What I would guess is that there was a tiny seedling or seed mixed in with your orginial coreopsis, and that at some point it was happy enough to stage a coup. Because although your original 'Moonbeam' coreopsis is a very stable variety - meaning it reliably grows the same way every year without some dormant genetic material deciding to take charge - that is the process from which we've gotten most of our popular perennial varieties - and so that is also a possibility.

I will look around the office in our books and see if I can ID that for you...

What you have there might be a coreopsis, or it might be a heliopsis... our horticulturist isn't in the office today - otherwise I'd have a quick positive identification for you.

What I would guess is that there was a tiny seedling or seed mixed in with your orginial coreopsis, and that at some point it was happy enough to stage a coup. Because although your original 'Moonbeam' coreopsis is a very stable variety - meaning it reliably grows the same way every year without some dormant genetic material deciding to take charge - that is the process from which we've gotten most of our popular perennial varieties - and so that is also a possibility.

I will look around the office in our books and see if I can ID that for you...

oh thank you! i appreciate your answer. that would be WEIRD if it mutated like that...just plain weird.

AHA! i figured out what i have. no idea how i got it but that's another thing entirely.

i have "plains coreopsis: coreopsis tinctoria", not moonbeam (which i distinctly remember being what i bought because i'm totally into the moon and all things lunar and i found that to be just too cool in a completely nerdy way.)

so. i bought moonbeam. i had moonbeam for 2 years. year three...tinctoria sprouts up from where moonbeam was planted.

the question is then...HOW THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN? :joker: do i just have freak mutants for plants? btw...tinctoria can get up to 5-8' tall in the proper conditions...it's a prairie plant. i apparently have the "proper conditions" (said with a very official british accent) lmao...

Coreopsis tinctoria page (http://www.missouriplants.com/Yellowopp/Coreopsis_tinctoria_page.html)

HA! "easy to grow" and found on "roadsides and railroads" and "spread beyond it's range" all mean... it's a weed! But it's pretty! So I'd keep it.

It's likely that the nursery that produced the seeds, or the one that produced the seedlings, or the one that grew the seedlings into full-sized moonbeam plants ready for sale - ALSO grew tinctoria... and so a seed may have drifted into your moonbeam pot before you bought it.

perhaps...but that doesn't explain WHERE my moonbeam went :joker: