Monday, July 20, 2015

It's Big

It's the biggest Joe Pye in the known universe. I see lots of Joe Pye in my travels and have never seen any quite this mammoth. I dare anyone to show me a bigger Joe Pye.




















There is good indication the koi pond has a slow leak. No one has ever been able to find it. Maybe this Joe Pye is feeding on very fertile, and I do mean very fertile pond scum water. Extra water alone can't be the cause of its gigantic size. Plenty Joe Pye in the wild has access to extra water.

It could also be genetic. I tossed seed of this behemoth into the Tall Flower Meadow. I have a suspiciously huge Joe Pye this year. It is twice the height of all the others and is no where near extra water. I may have my own giant Joe Pye.





















It is a minimum of fifteen feet high and there are at least two dozen stems left in a tight clump. I removed around ten that have snapped and fallen. There is a volunteer Paulownia tomentosa tree hiding behind it. I let that stay just to chop it down every year for the giant leaves.

It's huge. 


5 comments:

Lisa at Greenbow said...

WOW

Sallysmom said...

Good grief!! I bought Little Joe Pye last year and silly me, I thought it would be little - not.

Lola said...

I agree with Lisa Greenbow.

Carol McKenzie said...

How difficult is it to transplant a Joe Pye Weed? I have one growing alongside the garage, and when they come to re-side and re-wire, they'll end up digging a trench through that area. I'd like it to be somewhere else. Obviously now is not the time, as it's over 10 feet tall. I know I can collect the seeds, but I'd like to have the original plant. The garage work will happen next summer, so I do have some time.

Christopher C. NC said...

Joe Pye transplants pretty easy because it is a fairly shallow rhizome. I think the best time to do it is in early spring when it is just waking up and ready to grow.