Becky is spreading everywhere in a flower garden at the Jersey shore. I tried to dig some out for a friend and found the root system impossible to get out! Now I see that it is overtaking coneflower and spread into my hydrangeas . How can I stop this? Thankyou!

GG! If you want to dig out clumps, I've found a long, sharp, serrated knife like a bread knife is good for daisies. Cut down through the base all around the clump you want to remove, then slip your shovel down one side, and it will lift out like a piece of cake. It helps if you soak them with water first.

Ask your neighbors if they'd like some divisions, then invite whoever accepts over for lemonade and a
Diggin Party? (flag the clumps you want to keep so they don't all disappear!)

I've found that coneflowers aren't nearly as robust as daisies. They crowd themselves and sort of peter out rather than increase and spread. You need to lift, divide and refresh them about every 3 years or so.

Warm welcome from the Pacific NW. On a related note, how does Becky perform for standing on her own two feet? I have a standard Shasta and fight with it every summer when it suddenly gets too tall to support itself and flops all over the place. I don't care for the look or bother of plant supports and try to use only self-supporting plants. I've thought of replacing my unruly Shasta with Becky after reading reviews that it stays much shorter. How tall does it get for you?

I have Becky and she gets just about a foot tall for me. No flopping. But then again my regular Shastas don't flop either. I have not had the problem of it becoming invasive. But then again I am in totally a different zone.

Deb, too much water makes the regular Shastas flop over like that. I know it rains buckets where you are and maybe you can't control that, but when I lived in Vancouver BC, I had several clumps and noticed that the ones planted near some big hedge plants (roots stole some water, I'm guessing) didn't flop when the others away from the competition did.

In my daughter's garden in Utah (hot & dry) we always had only one clump that would flop, and it was near the veggie garden, getting watered every day.

do you have to pinch these back earlier in the spring to keep them from getting leggy and falling over? I think some mums have to do that and they are similar, I think?

I do not pinch mine

I never pinched mine either, for fear of losing the initial blooms. The long stems make such great cut flowers. That's the reason I never planted Becky or any of the other short ones. Just helped my friend transplant hers.

But if you deadhead them (or cut for bouquets) about halfway down the stem, after the first bloom cycle sometimes the stalks will re-bloom. You can sometimes see a new bud forming in a leaf axil on the stem and cut just above it. If they were late blooming, I'd also give them a little extra fert after deadheading.