Overwintering antirrhinums

[Monika]

Our antirrhinums have flowered very well this year and are still showing lots of buds on lower branches. I was thinking of keeping them in over winter because quite often wild-sown ones survive quite well over winter and flower the following year, but I have now noticed a lot of small white spots on the leaves. Could that be rust? Or is rust always red? Or another fungus?

If so, I had better pull them out because I don't want to carry any disease over to next year.

[glallotments]

Is it mildew Monika? I'm not sure whether the antirrhinums overwinter or it is just that they seed themselves and new plants come up next year. We have two in our front garden this year which we have never sown or planted. If it is self seeding then if they are F1s they would probably be different to the ones you are growing.

[Primrose]

I have a few antirrhinums dotted around the garden - all self sown and these do perpetuate themselves over the years. I notice at this time of year they do tend to get a bit manky with the odd spot of rust or mildrew. However, this doesn't seem to affect the quality of the seed and by and large I find them pretty hardy. I normally pull mine up after the first frosts if they've finished flowering but these self sown ones do seem to have the capacity to go on flowering even in light frost. If they're not looking too bad, I'd be tempted to leave them in but prune them back, as when I've done this they've sometimes regrown next Spring and produced a few more flowers.

[Monika]

Thanks, GL and Primrose. Yes, we too have some self-sown ones around the garden and I am going to leave some plants for the seed pods to ripen. And I was hoping to cut back the majority and, like you say, Primrose, hope that they may flower again next year as the self-sown ones often do. But the spots could be mildew, I must admit.

I will watch the plants closely in the next few weeks and act accordingly!