What\'s Blooming

Nice mix of colors Brenda!
Does your Chardonnay Pearls keep it's chartreuse foliage all summer Donna?
I suspect it would be greener in more shade? My yard is so shaded ...
Here are a few from yesterday.
I know what you mean about 'sun drenched' pictures.
It's so odd that they look great to the native eye in full sun,
but the pictures wash completely out.
The first picture is a sun-drenched bletilla striata - prettier than it looks.
Next is campanula Blue Waterfall.
Everyone says campanula is invasive, but I haven't been able to keep one alive.
So I'm pleased this one has survived a season.
Ditto for armeria maritima - but this time I planted in one of my grit pots.
It actually looks happy.
Finally one of my wife's chives in bloom. Quite pretty.

Hi Wee,

Chardonnay does a pretty good job of holding onto its color. This is a picture of it on July 23 on the south side of my house. Pretty toasty there. The second picture is on August 25. By then, other things are screaming for my attention, like the lilies.

This plant just amazes me. I had it on the north side of my house in a higher ph soil and half the light and it did just as well. Sometimes I give it a lot of water, and sometimes almost none.

You know what puzzles me? So many plants are marketed so heavily that are fairly disappointing. In my experience, unless you perchase a 5 gallon macrophylla you are going to wait a long time for impressive bloom, and I find they really have to be burlapped in zone 5 - yes, including Endless Summer. I was given a big one and it was nice, but if you have a one gallon don't hold your breath. But I was given a little Chardonnay in 2009 (see the sweet little thing in the third picture), and by 2010, one year later, it already is blooming and performing, and has the two traits it was marketed for - the gorgeous bloom and the color. I can't say that for any hydrangea that size, and this year when I was considering adding them to an area I went with viburnums instead.

I never buy the new plants, even Proven Winners. Raulston trials plants and then sends them to me - hence Chardonnay. Otherwise I pick them up at the end of the season for a few dollars. But I find that a lot of the heavily marketed, patented and expensive plants are very disappointing. I get lots of feedback at the Help Desk at Master Gardeners. I picked up a good sized but very cheap LA Hydrangea and it's doing very little after two years.

I cannot keep persificolia or glomerata alive, after many, many tries. But Bernice persists - it doesn't increase, but that OK. Do not ever grow takesimana unless you want to divide and divide. It's great in my back yard where I am driving out creeping chralie and violets with it. It has to be controlled in my front yard. The horrible one is rapunculoides. I did not plant it. It comes from my idiot neighbors' yards and invades everything. I am constantly digging it up because it has threadlike root, requiring extensive soil disturbance.

Love the pics. I gotta get outside with the camera. Brenda I am trying to do a lime green and violet area like yours. Nice combo.

These are my Azaleas bushes , they are very old ones that where here on the property when we purchased it nine years ago.I think I have to prune back the red one very drastic next year so it will bloom better.

Nice, cytf. My azaleas were a dud this year. Not sure why. We never get the great azalea blooms you east coasters get, but usually we get at least a sprinking of bloom - this year I hardly got anything. Part of the problem is that when I planted them years ago, they got decent sun - now pretty much shaded out. I've had tree companies thin the canopy a few times, but sheesh, it's expensive and only lasts a couple seasons, then full shade again. I'll just admire yours.

Those azaleas are stunning. Isn't it great when you move in and a wonderful plant is there? The PJM rhodie in my yard was planted by a woman who moved away 25 years ago. I almost feel guilty, because it's so beautiful with no work. So, of course, I create work by giving it acid loving fertilizer, some annual Ironite and a soaker hose. Which, of course, creates work because it grows like mad now!

And yes - full southern sun.

Thank you DonnaMack and Weerobin. Weerobin do you prune your plants every early July? Because that,s what I do every year and all of mine are in Morning sun.

I re-started the thread here
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1424463/

My lilies are blooming and I was so surprised seeing Straw flower coming up between my Shasta daisy . Impatient are doing well for me so far, I made a cutting last fall and it did well and I made more cuttings from it

The geranium is doing well too.

Cytf,
We moved to another thread - look at Weeding's post just before yours!
Your strawflower is a coreopsis Sunburst, which looks nice with your daisies! And I like how you used coreopsis under your lily.
Everything looks so lush and beautiful! I can't say which lily looks more beautiful but I love all the buds and habit on the first one.

Thank you Loretta for the name of my flower. I did not know it was a Coreopsis family,but I am enjoying its blooms. That pink lily always do justice every year.