Erigeron karvinskianus

[bigbeautifulmonster]

I would love for this to seed freely into my stone garden steps but have had no success with seeds.
I have some plug plants (bought last year but didn't get round to doing anything with them. Still alive and seem fine)- anyone try squashing plugs into the nooks and crannies with success? Do I need to do any preparation of sorts?

You could give it a go but mine have self seeded unti the cracks from the bits I've got planted at the edges of my raised beds

This is a lovely plant that in my garden is always covered in beneficial bugs and self seeds everywhere. Soil varies in my garden but I find this plant everywhere. I didn't prepare my garden either, just planted them and left them alone.

I’ve bought one plant a year or 2 ago & successfully taken cuttings of it & spread about while waiting to see if it self seeds. Mount Stewart in NI has it covering steps & it’s beautiful!

I’ve found it takes in most places - until it doesn’t!
if it takes, it goes nuts.
It likes crappy soil, so you’d not need to do prep. My profusion came from a few scraggy plants pulled from between paving at my mum’s. You can roughly split plants when they’ve taken and expand their reach that way.
If I were you, I’d try and get some of your plugs established in a big pot, or somewhere easy, and try planting the rest between paving. Then you’ll have a ‘mothership’ clump in the pot to go back to for more if the others don’t establish.

Do not attempt to squash your plug plants in between the cracks OP! For one thing you will damage the roots and for another you'd have to water them until they were established and it would be virtually impossible to do this.

As the PP said, pot them on. Pot them into the next size pot up and then pot them on again. If you have ground that you can plant them into near your steps then so much the better. If not, keep them in pots near the steps and they will begin to flower and will seed everywhere.

We have EK right by our steps and they have literally seeded into every nook and cranny. I don't want them everywhere, and they are a bugger to remove.

Thank you for your replies 😊
I think I'll do the mothership idea suggested and have a go squishing them into the holes while keeping some for backup. After all, they've survived just being in their tiny seed cell tray all this time with minimum help from me so they seem pretty tough.

I have some seedlings of profusion that I’m planning to do the same with. Good luck op!