Everlasting Plant Care Tips

Everlasting plants are a great choice for a flower arrangement, especially in a sunny area. Their flowers last a long time after they’re cut and they can be dried for use in crafts.

You can also grow this plant in pots and add them to a butterfly or pollinator garden. This perennial has a low water needs and can withstand even drought conditions.

Watering

Watering is an important factor in keeping everlasting plants healthy. If you fail to provide enough moisture, they may suffer from diseases such as root rot.

Pearly everlasting, or Anaphalis margaritacea, is a native perennial that grows in North America and can be used to add interest to wildflower arrangements or meadows. It has silvery foliage and small white flowers that encase yellow centers.

This native is an ideal companion plant for many garden favorites, including false indigo (Baptisia), penstemon, coreopsis, liatris, and garden phlox.

Pearly everlasting is a good choice for hot, dry areas and needs little maintenance once established in the landscape. In addition, it’s an excellent choice for butterfly and native gardens because of its bright blooms that attract pollinators. It can also be used in flower arrangements, especially if you use the dried flowers.

Fertilizing

Plants thrive best when they have the nutrients they need to grow, produce flowers and fruit, establish a strong root system and fight diseases and pests. Fertilizers help plants get those essential nutrients.

Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) are the three main nutrients plants need in the largest quantities. Each nutrient plays a critical role in the growth and development of plants.

Perennials especially benefit from fertilizer applications at an early stage, when they are making their first signs of growth in spring. The nitrogen in the fertilizer promotes foliage growth while the phosphorus drives root growth, giving your perennials a stronger foundation for blooms in the spring.

Applying fertilizer is a simple and important task. Depending on the type of fertilizer you use, it can be dissolved or diluted with water and poured onto the roots or foliar-fed into the soil.

Pruning

Pruning is one of the most important landscape maintenance practices for any gardener. The right pruning can give your plants a beautiful look, increase the amount of sunlight that can enter the landscape, and help prevent disease and other damage from occurring.

When pruning, it is critical to remove dead or dying branches that can harbor pathogens and cause harm. It also helps control the shape and size of a plant.

A good way to rejuvenate everlasting shrubs is to cut back about a third of the stems each year. This will allow them to grow and bloom again over time.

Another important type of pruning is thinning and heading. This is a common practice on many perennials and annuals.

This is a quick and easy way to trim up your garden without requiring the use of special tools. The resulting foliage will be much healthier and more colorful than before.

Disease Prevention

If you want to preserve your everlasting flowers, it is important to know how to prevent them from becoming infected. This includes avoiding diseases that can weaken or kill the plant, and protecting it from pests.

A disease is a malfunction that occurs in response to continuous irritation by an infectious causal agent, called a pathogen. These organisms can be bacteria, viruses or fungi.

Symptoms may include leaf spots or patches, wilting or dieback, abnormally large flowers or rots. A bacterial infection can be very serious and difficult to manage.

The most effective way to prevent a disease from occurring is to avoid conditions that facilitate the spread of inoculum, such as water splashing during irrigation or rainfall, pruning or wounding events and other human actions. Infection is also often transmitted to nondiseased plants by insects or other arthropods. These vectors can transport fungal spores, bacterial cells or viral particles that serve as the disease inoculum (Figure 2).