Posted by
MissiveMaven (Lovell, Maine (Western ME near White Mountains) - Zone 5a) on Feb 11, 2018 12:46 PM concerning plant:
I have a love/hate relationship with this plant. I have a garden inherited from former owners, which was well-planned but untended for a couple years before I got to it. The gooseneck loosestrife has almost overtaken the largest garden bed, and I find it nearly impossible to contain. It is very well-established, and the runner spreading encroaches and overtakes other plants.
However: it is a pollinator magnet. The garden is humming with bees, butterflies, hummingbirds (and yes, wasps too but I don't mind them a bit), and many are drawn by the profusion of loosestrife. It's pretty. And finally - I'm intrigued this is good for bogs, because I have it in very dry, extremely poor soil. I've made my peace with it, because it is planted in an area with bedrock right beneath it, and this may be the only flowering perennial that can survive in two inches of sandy, very poor soil above bedrock.
And also important: it requires absolutely zero care, other than ripping it up at the edges every summer so it doesn't completely overtake the other plants around it (if left alone, eventually it would do so. The runners are intense). Dry? Wet? Hot? Cool? It's going to bloom and look lovely, whatever the case, at least as far as I've seen in quite variable summer weather.
In zone 4b this does NOT bloom in late spring or early summer, not until mid-summer do we see the blooms open.
Would I plant it myself? Probably not (except, again, it does grow well on that two inches of soil over bedrock). But it's there now, I'm probably never getting rid of it, so I've decided to love it for all the pollinators it brings, and the blooms which are indeed lovely.
Posted by
materfan on Jul 28, 2015 9:14 PM concerning plant:
These are pollinator magnets! All kinds of little flyers love them.
I have a bunch filling a 6'Lx3" W raised bed. A few escape, and are easily pulled up, and relocated on an embankment for erosion control.
I can see that someone might get annoyed if they wanted it in a certain area, and it randomly kept popping up out of boundaries, but if it's used "correctly" and given an area to itself to spread in, its boundaries can be easily maintained by a lawn mower, weed barrier, stonework, or even raised beds and walkways.
It shouldn't be planted near persons with bee sting allergies because it bustles with pollinators, including bees and wasps.
It can self seed, and individual plants pop up in various places, and that might be what they mean by invasive.
Self-sowing plants, if left there, can start new colonies, that would be hard to get rid of, especially in unmowable places.
