Well I am at an all time version of "stumped" with an issue in my annual garden plantings. We live in North Central Georgia [30656], and have both Vinca flowers and (perrinial) Mexican Heather, growing in our front full sun garden beds. The soil is mostly a red clay mix, and the majority of the plants in the beds, are doing beautiful. However I have six plants (spots) in various areas of my front garden bed, that simply refuse to grow no matter what we have tried both in irrigation and fertilizer and how many times I have replaced the plant in that particular spot.
A bit of background this is the very first year in four years since moving to the area, that we have finally placed annuals in the ground. Last year, as we were starting our landscaping plan, we placed the Mexican Heather into the ground last spring. It grew fine, and this year, all but two plants came back this season without any issue. These two plants were most likely killed off because they had been mistakingly been planted with the weed guard barrier under the roots. They were replaced and are growing without any further issues.
We planted the Vinca in April. Almost 90 feet of beds. All of the plants stared out normal, but these six plants in completely random areas, seemed to have an issue right from the start. At first we thought that a night of lower than normal temps, may have caused the death of these plants, and they were replaced. However, Within a short period of time, those new plants also died. At the time, I was not paying too much attention to which plants were needing to be replaced. At this them I was simply thinking that a few plants were randomly just not making it, and they were replaced as they died. The issue really started ,to peak our interest when we started to notice that the plants that were dying, seemed very close to the area that we had replaced before. Because we have a very large lawn with many plants, it did not seems out of the ordinary at first. But since and I am disabled with a back issue and lupus, my husband does the planting for me AKA: point and plant, and now we had two sets of eyes on these plants, and really started to notice that it was indeed not random, but the same plants in these random areas of the beds were dying. And yes, we were now on a on aTHIRD replanting, and we without a doubt realized that it was actually these certain individual that plants, were having reoccurring 'death issues'.
First up, we looked at the irrigation. Upon closer look, it seemed that the pop up sprinkler heads, were [possibly] not totally reaching these particular plants effectively. And we adjusted the spray of the heads (and also put in ANOTHER vinca). We watched it for two weeks, and they seemed to be doing better. And then, they took a turn for the worse and just died off. We looked closer at the irrigation. While the ground looked like it was being hit by the water in those spots, it seemed like just wasn't hitting those exact areas in the same way, and was not enough to keep the new plants alive.
The pop up spray heads were replaced by direct drip hoses. The spacing of the new drip holes on the hoses, was every six inches. In the time that it took us to replace all of the pop up heads and lay new the new drip hoses, the now FOURTH planting of vinca in those certain spots were also now dying (yet again). We thought that somehow we just may have possibly not gotten in the new irrigation in time to save these newly planted spots. We also thought that perhaps the above normal heat of 90+ degree days, was just too traumatic for those new plants and we AGAIN put in a new plant into these six spots that are simply refusing to let any plant grow. I think that brings us to five or six replacement plantings now? Needless to say the head scratching involved here is causing bald spots!
The spots where the plants are dying, are totally random in the 90 ft beds. In three areas, the plants to the left and right of the victim plants, are growing beautifully. It is only in one particular area where there are three vinca plants in a row, that won't thrive.
Now , I am no stranger to Vinca flowers. I know that Vinca do not like 'wet feet', and are careful to not over water the beds. And while our summer has been incredibly hot and dry, Conditions such as this are normally considered to be absolutely perfect conditions for vinca to thrive. It is without a doubt the strangest most oddball gardening issue I have EVER run into! It is only in these particular six spots, and over approximately 90 feet of flower beds, where the rest of the flowers are growing great. I would even use the word lush to describe the other flowers in the exact same bed.
I'm not sure if possibly the very first plants that were put into the ground, had any disease issues and contaminated every future plant? I don't know if that is even possible! All I know is I am left totally scratching my head and stumped in a way that I have never been stumped before in all of my 35+ years of growing both flowers and veggies. I consider myself to be very well versed in knowing what will or will not grow in certain areas. When I don't know, I always do my homework, especially when it comes to perrinials and putting in any 'permanent plants' into any area. Because I have always had a home that had full sun flower beds, I have always chosen Vinca over imaptiens for the 'oomph factor' of color. So I consider them to be a flower variety that I am comfortable planting. I have never had any issue simply because of how EASYGOING they are to get to thrive every summer! Below are pictures of two the spots where the issue is taking place. If needed, I can supply more photos to show the health of the entire bed(s) as a whole. It is literally these six random spots in the ground, where I simply cannot get the vinca to grow to match the rest of the beds.
