What\'s Blooming #2

Loretta, your Lilium pumilum is fantastic, so is your Kalmia (both colors) and your Verbascum...beautiful photos.

My rose from seed had one bloom on it last year and I think it's been growing for four years. This year it put on a show and the wait was long, thanks for the complements.

I'm envious of your kalmias, too.. despite many attempts, just can't do ericaceous around here. After torturing to death too many plants, I've given up on them. Yours are beautiful!
My blue-eyed grass is pretty weedy - I pull it most of the time.
As for those kangaroo paws, they're just annual? They're cute.

Not a great picture but:

Lilium martagon album has bloomed.

I have at least 20 penstemon digitalis 'Husker Red' from the Prairie garden I work. Bees pollinated the native plant so we were encouraged to remove them. Hey, twist my arm. I have them on all four sides of my property. Sun or shade, dry (driveway!) or moist, this plant performs.

Album is very nice, Donna. Tried it once but the squirrels thought they were very nice too. I also love Huskers Red! You have a nice healthy clump of them! As for the rose list, that is an impressive list. Wish I had room for all of them.
Thanks about the Lilies and the Kalmias. Kalmias are tough. I tried to have a lot of them in my yard and they are native around here but they are hard to keep around. These two are the only ones that stayed.
And Kangaroo Paws are tender perennials. I'm hoping to overwinter them inside so we'll see.

This message was edited Jun 11, 2016 7:32 PM

Loretta, I wish I could remember them all. There were probably 70 roses on that list. I have been trying to find it, but it's not out there. And while I sent Joel a note of condolence on his father's passing (we used to correspond) I didn't have the heart to ask for the list. It would probably dredge up unpleasant memories for him, and he truly is a lovely person. I wouldn't want that.

At last after two years my Delphinium has bloomed,despite the fights that I had with the slugs.Thanks to my crushed eggshells and compost.lol

Congratulations! I know the struggle.

Congratulations! Great job!

Rose Gruss an Aachen. One of my favorites, and when I moved I reestablished it. The first picture shows its setting, and the second the rose.

Roses for me right now:

What you see is maybe six 2nd year Canadian "Campfire" roses. I am thinking but hoping not that they maybe over performed in their first season but now into their second season they are looking just as good if not better with their increased 'bulk'. Last year there were continual blooms till October.

And meet our elderly "John Cabot" climber. For the last three seasons it has dropped most of its leaves by August (black spot I think). And so I vow to cut it back and dig it out and replace it but every time I chicken out as I love it from mid June till the first week of July. It always looks it best on "Fathers Day" weekend when we have our annual family bbq. This rose is part of our family ;)



This message was edited Jun 14, 2016 5:09 PM

This message was edited Jun 14, 2016 5:10 PM

Very nice Rouge21, your 'John Cabot' looks good enough to keep and 'Campfire' is quite the performer...kind of like a show-off!

I've recently discovered Astrantia and may like it better than Hosta...

Thank you Mipii.

I am so glad you like Astrantia as they are one of my favorite perennials. I bet I have 6 clumps of it scattered throughout our property! They do require more consistent moisture than say Hostas. There are some varieties that will bloom much of the summer if you cut back after flowering.

If the Astrantia foliage looks much better than the Hosta mid summer, I'll be very happy and looking for more.

Black spot has prevented me from growing Roses, I've tried a few times and will just resort to admiring all the beauties you guys post. It would be a perfect alternative if only I could smell them too...sigh.

I've been looking for astrantia this year. No one ever sells it but it's fun to hunt. I had a plant I grew from seed and it did well but was overgrown by something else and I never moved it. The seed has to be real fresh. I've traded for it a few times and it never germinated. Not until I collected some seed myself, did I get it to grow. Robin, your plant looks very happy!
Gruss an Aachen - I bought that once from Sequoia Nursery in California but it never took. Donna, yours looks very nice with the grass in the back and the lady's mantle between. How do you keep the grass from overrunning the roses?
Rouge, you and I think alike. I love the roses now but after July I'm ready to rip them all out! John Cabot is beautiful though and I since it does well for you at BBQ time, it's a keeper!

Ah, there is no grass there! I remove grass from beds and replace it with plants, like the roses, and mulch. And then I put in companion plants like geraniums and parsley and ladies mantle. So there is little or no place for grass to grow.

Why are you ready to rip out roses after July? Roses like Gruss - and a lot of others - stay healthy and repeat bloom every few weeks. I liked "Joel's Picks' because those roses did not tend to get blackspot. Roses like Marie Pavie and Gruss don't get it. I do have blackspot prone roses (I have three Bourbon roses) but I just spray once a month, starting in May, with Bonide or Safer sulphur. I use the concentrate. I go over and spray my neighbor's phlox, since it should have been mildew resistant but was not. If I do this, blackspot is not an issue.

No grass, Donna? What am I seeing in your setting then just behind the lady's mantle?
Why do I want to rip out my roses after July (and sometimes sooner)?
1. First comes the rose slugs in spring which skeletonize the new leaves. Although in the last two years, something has been eating them because they are there one day and gone the next before destroying everything.
2. And by then I also have aphids. But they don't bother me so much because I have hover flies and ladybugs and they have been taking care of that.
3. When they are at their peak, it is usually time for a few torrential downpours.
4. And then come the night feeders, first Asiatic Garden Beetle (Maladera castanea) which have a long season, a few large June Bugs which have a short season, and earwigs which are at full blast once the lightening bugs are out. They don't kill the plants but they ruin the appearance of the flowers. I drowned a lot of them last year.
5. July and August are so hot and humid here and sometimes dry, the roses go dormant and lose their leaves to black spot. Blackspot is bad in NJ. Then they are just ugly thorny sticks.
6. There are also stem borers early on but they are manageable.

I admit I don't spray and so far this year has been fairly good and many of my roses are in a new spot but it is still June so we'll see.

I should have been more clear. I rip out all the lawn. You can see bits of lawn remaining in the front but there is no lawn in the actual bed. From the line where the ladies mantle and roses are and back, there is no grass, unless you include the ornamental grass. It goes back several feet, and where there are no plants there is mulch.

I grow my roses with a lots of plants that attract beneficial insects, and they take care of the problem, except for japanese beetles. For them I go out early with soapy water. I also notices that four o'clocks attract them and then kill them.

The beneficial plants I put around them are alliums, geraniums, nepeta, parsley, feverfew - a whole bunch of really attractive plants. But borage is a real winner. There is a study that concluded that one square yard of borage attracted more than 100 beneficial insects. And its the preferred egg laying site of green lacewings. And you can grow it from seed. In fact, if you put it in once it comes back every year - just pull out the excess. I grow it in blue and white.

I also read a study that clump forming grasses like miscanthus provide really good summer shelter and overwintering sites for ground beetles, lady bugs and other guys.

These plants are EVERYWHERE in my yard, all four sides. They are beautiful plants and tend to bloom all season.

The other thing, and I think it's important - don't grow roses in groups in isolation beds. A lot of people do that, and they are simply gathering together the nasty guy's favorite foods. People who have all rose gardens have terrible problems. So do people whose gardens consist of essentially nothing but lilies. The predators that like them just jump from one plant to another.

Thanks for the info Donna.

I am talking about the ornamental grasses. In the picture, it looks right next to the roses.
Nothing eats Asiatic Garden Beetle.

It's a bit of an optical illusion. I did have peonies in the grass. One reason I chose graziella is that, from experience, I know that some miscanthus slice lilies and other flowers. Morning Light. It will cut YOU! It would slice my lilies. It would slice me! I mean it's really gorgeous but you have to be careful with it. Graziella does not, so it's really flexible in terms of use.Check out the pictures. Everything got so much bigger, and at first I was concerned. But all was well. Sometimes my goof ups (and this was a goof up) teach me tons. If that grass was 'Morning Light', those lilies would be in shreds.

"John Cabot" is renowned for its disease hardiness and diseases resistance. This particular plant has been in the ground for maybe 14 years and it is only the last two summers that bspot has come into the picture.

Do roses have a lifespan? I would assume after a certain age it would become more susceptible to disease (just like humans ;)?

I have made a conscious effort to feed it more ie extra compost and even man made water soluble rose food trying to keep it as healthy as I can.

I wonder if it is too late to apply sulphur dust once one sees bspot ie it is best to apply it as a preventative measure?

Some things to research.

I remember reading part of the sales pitch of an own root rose was that in a grafted rose, the rootstock would eventually run out of budding space and die off. I don't know if I believe that. I have only one Dr Huey after I physically removed the original shrub and some root must have remained in the ground. I guess most my roses are own root but I have some that are not and sucker without reverting to Dr. Huey. In that case, they can renew themselves.

Hey Loretta,

I've experienced own root roses suckering. Some of my old garden roses have done that and its great. Rose de Rescht did that for me at my former home. And it had the good taste to place itself far enough away that I could just leave it.

Longiflorum Asiactic Red Alert. It's my fist lily every year.

Salvia viridis, also known as hominum, a tender salvia. I only have to plant it every few years, because it seeds, and comes up without help. In blue and pink. I have it here with roses and woodland strawberries.

Happy Blooms - Donna

Here are a few of what's blooming here - photo's taken just a couple days ago. LOTS of Gloriosa Daisy, so I'll have YELLOW for a long while.

My # 2 photo has the Pink Delight butterfly bush to the back, which has been a wonderful quality choice for my garden. The photo (of course), doesn't really do it justice. A couple few years ago a bloom branch from it won 4 ribbons at an Illinois District Flower Show. Anyone have the very old fashioned-fragrant (heirloom) petunia like is blooming in photo #5?. It is one of the few flowers that was here on the place back in 1972 when we bought the place. It kind of like to ramble, but I like the nostalgia.

Congratulations on your well deserved prize! It is a beauty.

The Select Seeds catalog references scented petunias. I think I should try them. I started my gardening adventure with heirlooms. Thank you for the idea.

Brenda, awesome on the flower show! Just entering is fantastic! Again, I love your combinations. That petunia, I imagine that scent is typical petunia scent that you sometimes smell at the nurseries? I'm just trying to imagine what a good scented petunia is because so many people love it and I'm not a big petunia grower at this house. They are eaten. It looks elegant with the lamb's ear. In your garden, I think sprawling petunias are more appropriate.
Donna, I've only had that salvia reseed for me once or twice. It's great it comes back for you. Congratulations on your first lily! That's a good one! Great color and lots of buds!

Hi Brenda I love the Lamb"s Ear with the Petunia , I may try it. Is that a Bird Cage in the garden , I love it.We learn from each other on the site . Happy gardening

Yes - it's a birdcage in the garden. It has lost it's topper, but I still like it for a little focal point. My old fashioned petunia was well received - great. Thanks.

I've been out all morn doing some odd jobs here and there in the gardens. Lucky me when I came to the house for lunch - Ole Sissy was just driving up and brought cold fresh chunks of pineapple and cold fresh sliced cantaloupe for lunch. What a treat. It's really nice when the sister lives just down the road a few miles.

I'm working on a River of Daisies - and I've just about got a them everywhere . . . . even though they are very seasonal, I enjoy them. They will peak soon.

Yeah, I may just have to copy that lamb's ear and petunia combo.
The white river through all that yellow looks great! You have enough room to make graphic designs which seems like a lot of fun. I don't have enough space for that and when I try, something always fails. It's hard to be willful in the garden sometimes.

Brenda, I have that petunia also. It re-seeds for me, and I also grow it from seed to plant here and there. It is a very hardy petunia, gets taller than the hybrids and stays more erect. It blooms all season without much care. I like it because it reseeds nicely: nothing over the top--just gives you extras. My petunias are either lilac or white.

Various Astrantia:



This message was edited Jun 23, 2016 6:45 AM

Love astrantia! What conditions do you grow them in, Rouge?

Thank you 'Loretta'.

I think I have 6 plants scattered about. None in full sun and even those in part sun do look quite peaked by the end of a sunny day. It has been my experience that they can definitely take more shade than I might have thought originally.

rouge 21 - Oh - I love the astrantia. I don't have it and I have yet to see it anywhere around here. The foliage looks familiar, but not the blooms. It is a scourching 93 here prior to noon and miserably hot and sure to get hotter. So that might be why I have yet to ever see it. Pretty - thanks for sharing!

Thank you 'brenda'. They would melt in the weather you describe (unless they had tons of moisture)!

Beautiful Astrantia Rouge! I have one growing in full shade, its just a little juvy right now and it's a piece of the one pictured above (like Rouge's pic# 4). We'll see if it blooms there. I have planted a red one but don't expect blooms until next summer.

Thanks very much Mipii. Good for you and full shade. Speaking of "red ones", there seems to be a newer variety of Astrantia known as Red Joyce (not sure how different it is from other red ones).

Persicaria Polymorpha:

Persicaria Polymorpha: