A Plant A Day Till Spring – Day 58 – Centaurea

“Centaurea triumfettii – ???” – Spring 2013 – Whitney Avenue/Hamnett Way/Jeanette Street – Wilkinsburg, PA

“A Plant a Day till Spring” will highlight one plant a day, starting on the winter solstice (December 21, 2013)… And ending on the vernal equinox (March 20, 2014)… If all goes to plan I will be starting with old Snowdrop photos from 2013… And ending with new photos of Snowdrops in 2014…

Mountain Bluet… Cornflower… Loggerhead… That’s just a tiny sampling of some of the common names associated with this genus… Centaurea is only found north of the equator… It is considered an invasive weed in many locations…

Centaurea is a popular trap-crop… It secretes a sticky-sweet goo that attracts all sorts of pests… Planting a “beetle-bank” alongside crops will not only help reduce the amount of insect damage to your other plants… The rather large size of the plant creates habitat for all sorts of other insects and animals that when combined create a pretty intense effect… The photograph above is under one of my apple trees…

Centaurea tends to get a little floppy come mid-season… This is one of its only downsides… I have found around the end of June/early July the entire plant can be cut to the ground with minimal long-term effect… It will take a few days for growth to resume… But once it does the plant will flower at a much smaller size than before the pruning… And it will prevent you from having to deal with a bare-centered plant…

I highly recommend the Wikipedia link below… It is one of the best plant-related Wiki’s I have read in a long time…

——————————————————————————-

In other news… It is snowing… Again… I was actually planning to have put shovels to the earth over at the Urban Farm I am starting this year… I need to hand-cut 8 6’x40′ rows… And I need to plant a dozen trees… Just waiting on the winter to give up already…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

If you want some science – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurea

Link specific to plant photographed – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurea_triumfettii

These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring when I start writing more… My source (where applicable) is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information…

This website and all of the information presented within is provided free by the author… Me… It is my sole opinion and is not representative of anyone other than myself… You can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com

Remember to tip… My Bitcoin digital wallet address is… 1JsKwa3vYgy4LZjNk4YmPEHFJNjPt2wDJj

Get your own wallet at CoinBase.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.