My garden's a tight space...

So Dorothie, I've been meaning to ask you who know so much more than I do, what determines which direction a bulb's flower will face? Actually I guess I mean more than just bulbs, I mean flowers, too. The dayliles in the row separating the lawn from the street face both directions, I think, and with them, because we have so many and they don't really have a front or a back, it doesn't matter so much. But the brand new Hollyhocks in the back never seem to be facing me. I guess that garden is meant to be viewed from the west, i.e. when I come out of the house, I'm to the west of the garden. I want everyone to be facing me. The short stuff is at my feet (or wheels, as the case may be) and the tall stuff is in the back, in the east. At least that's the way it's meant to be! I think I planted Foxgloves but I haven't seen them yet. (Did you see this woman's Foxgloves? Out-blinking-rageous!http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/619922/#new 7-28 at 1:56 And this is her summer house! Anyway, it is a disappointment to me that my flowers all seem to be looking away from me. Especially the gladiolus! They actually ARE winter hardy, they had a little trouble supporting their own weight, but we planted them in the fall and they came up in the summer. But some are facing north and some are facing south but not one is facing me, i.e. west.

I'm going to dig everything up anyway and rearrange it as best as Tanya and I can. Ray suffers from male delusions of straight lines and spacing, i.e. if the north and south edges are 15 ft apart, and he has 3 plants, all 24" high, so all should be equally west-east, he'll put one at the 12ft line, one at the 3ft line, and one at the 8ft line. Sigh. And he thinks of me as the earth mother. He also buys 'mixed bouquets'! If one is going to buy 'mixed bouquets', one ought to buy three of them!

Digging up daylilies, will we find bulblets and such? There's no way to make them face a certain way, is there?

Ahh. Well, I have many questions to ask on many forums, so I'll dig you later, 'gator.

xxxxxxxx, Carrie

P.S. I'm sending along a pic of my double impatiens, I forget the name of the color, something like 'hot coral'.

Dear Carrie,

I don't know what causes flowers to turn certain ways except when they are striving to follow the sun. Since your flowers are facing East I don't know what the problem is. Daylilies bloom in all directions unless they have only half day sun and they they tend to bloom in the direction of the sun. I have some near a north wall and they all want to bloom facing south. Not so good since you can't see them from the path. But DH's study windows have a beautiful view of them.

It's an interesting question. I wouldn't even know where to ask about it.

My hollyhocks have always had flowers on all sides of the stem. I don't grow them any more because of rust though.

When you dig your daylilies you will find root systems with bulblets on them. I don't think that those will grow new daylilies though. The only way that I know of to grow true-to-type daylilies are through division of the plant or proliferations which are little daylily plants that grow in the leaves. Seeds will become something entirely different but are fun to try sometimes. Do you like to grow things from seeds?

Thanks to the link for the foxgloves. The thread was beautiful. Perhaps she got the foxgloves at the nursery? I notice that they are properly staked. Love the yellow roses with them. By the way, if you want to create a hyperlink you need to put it on it's own line. Otherwise I have to cut and paste.

Beautiful Impatiens. I haven't grown them in awhile and I probably should. I haven't done fibrous begonias either. I'm a little short on the annual route because I just don't get to the garden center much any more.

I'll share a bunch of Margo Reed Indeed daylilies. :-)

Dorothie

Dorothie-

Now Parks has made me want 'on and on' daylilies and sundown or sunrise or sunshine echinea. The trouble is I don't know which one, sunrise or sunset or sunup. Let me see if they have it in plantfiles.

This rose is one I pruned right after rehab in 2002. It is one that had been ignored for years. So I decided, my first day home from the hospital, to prune it! I could barely hold a clipper. It took ALL my energy to use them. Ray had to carry me over there, but I was 30 lbs lighter than I had been before I got sick. I exhausted myself after 15 min or so, and then we went right back to ignoring it. Welll this year, POW!! It was covered with blooms! For absolutely no reason.

xxxxxxx, Carrie

What a pretty color that rose bush is. That's such an amazing story about what you did after coming out of rehab. Nothing is ever stopping you, is it?

I was going to dig some daylilies today but I'm wiped out totally. I'm not quite sure what happened but I'm not doing much today. Yuchhh. Some days are just like this. I know that you know. It's only noon and I've already taken a nap.

I'd be hesitant about the pink "Stella" at Park's. It's the only place that carries it and it's been around awhile. Stella D'Oro for instance is carried by 17 vendors in the plantfiles. Other places would be carrying it if if were worth it's fare I think. Perhaps it's because it's only 12-18 inches tall and there's no photo of it in the plantfiles. I don't know. There is no photo at Tinker's either. Very strange. You might ask about it in the forum. Perhaps it's great. If it does what it says it does, then it great. Fragrant in daylilies means not very fragrant. :-) Plus that I can never get my nose down close enough to a plant that short to smell it without falling over and passing out. LOL

You might try this thread for some ideas about what to buy.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/615252/

This is Forbidden Fantasy.

Dorothie-

I think I like forbidden fantasy! Does that make me a bad person? For wanting a forbidden fantasy?

If there's no photo in PF and only Parks is carrying them, that's a good reason not to buy them. (The price they're charging, a bad reason would have been fine!) Maybe you were exhausted because of the heat wave??

Thanks for the link. I'm gonna go read it now. But I will stop back before I hit the sack, i.e. go to bed. (I'm starting to talk like Ray after nearly 10 years together.)

~ Carrie

No, it doesn't make you a bad person at all. LOL Forbidden Fantasy is a wonderful daylily. That's the first year in the garden and taken last week so it's in rebloom. You can buy Forbidden Fantasy for just a little more (or less) than the $15.00 that Parks is selling the pink Stella for. It's a semi evergreen so it should grow in your part of the world.

It doesn't really mean something if no one carrys a flower either. I just don't trust Parks, I guess. I don't generally buy from big general plant companies.

It's cooled off so I don't know what my problem is but I feel as if I'm swimming in jello. I'll probably feel better tomorrow.

Dorothie

Dorothie~

Swimming in Jello? That's almost exactly what I say, I say I feel like I'm swimming in pudding! I hear you woman!

xxxxxxx, Carrie

What flavor??? My jello is anything but green. Pudding would be harder and it's hard to see through. But I believe you that it's pudding for you.

Doss-

Chocolate pudding, of course. And none of your "instant" garbage, cooked pudding, pref. with whole milk. [If I have to swim through the crap, might as well enjoy it as much as possible...]

And have I thanked you yet for sending YOUR heat wave to the East Coast?

Carrie

Sorry about that. I've been blowing it in your direction as hard as I can. Can't quite believe what you can do if you make up your mind to do it.

Dark chocolate pudding, please?

I did one more daylily today. That makes two and that's it for the day. Have to glory in my small accomplishments.

Yes, in fact, while we're at it, chocolate mousse!

I have a friend with PPS, who keeps saying "lower your expectations, then you won't be disappointed when you fail to live up to the standards you set for an Olympic triathlete" and when she's feeling very glum, she says just "lower your expectations." I think she means forgive yourself, and realign your expectations with what's actually reasonable and customary. She had to move her family from Boston to Indiana because she had a free house in IN which her mother left her. (Boston is very expensive.) Her husband is blind and her 16 yo son has autism! But her daughter is gorgeous and got an all-expense paid trip to Harvard and now she has a glamorous job in your area!

She used to be my best friend.

xxxxx, Carrie

That is some story Carrie. What some people can do. Just surviving in that kind of situation is remarkable when you think of what little people do with so much more.
My favorite is 'Dorothie, stop trying." My therapist told me that if trying would have gotten me better, then I would be better all ready. It took me a year of therapy to get that. LOL
I won't tell you how many elimination diets I've been on - well it's 3. Now they say that if you put a migraine person on an elimination diet you end up with a migraine person who can't eat anything!

Sorry that you lost her.

Dorothie

Well, we do e-mail in fits and starts. I like finding your comments in the watchdog or plantfiles or even just a sticky thread! Where did the name 'doss' come from, and what does it mean? It is Way Too Hot today.

xxxxxxx, Carrie

Doss is a nickname that I got as a little kid from an Aunt who was 4 years older than I was. It stuck and although I got a lot of nicknames in my life, it's the only one I answer. People for some reason think that Dorothie needs to be shortened to Dottie or Dot etc. The worst was a much younger cousin who called me 'Dopey'. Ena's son calls me 'Norfy'. The other good thing about doss is that it's seldom used so that I can use the same 'name' everywhere'.

There you go!

Hopefully it will cool off there soon. It's back to beautiful California weather now. I'm SO glad.

One of Ray's favorite stories about me involves flying to SF when it was chilly here and wet and clammy in SF so I had the heat way up in the tiny rented car and then we got to our hotel in San Jose or somewhere and there was a temp. display outside that said "101 F" so he turned off the heat and started unrolling the windows.

I think I remember that when I get cold, I stay cold for a long time. Ditto hot.

Is the temp problem part of the medical problem? It sure comes with migraines.

Other than the agricultural people like the apricots growers, the surrounding area we live in was originally populated by wealthy San Franciscans who spent the summers "on the Peninsula" so that they could get out of the fog. Not huge mansions as in the East but comfortable indeed. Most are gone now. In fact the train from SF to here was originally for that purpose.

Lots of little fun history facts.

This message was edited Aug 2, 2006 2:34 PM

Wow, after lie-around-like-a-dead-bug weather all day, we're having like a summer thunderstorm. The temp feels like it dropped 20 - 30 degrees already! We got to 102 degrees today.

Are you near Walnut Creek? (been there.) Pleasanton? Concord? Palo Alto? I'm trying to visualize the map you get from Avis, not very successfully.

Now I'm sharing my office with my DH, so I may have to get off soon. Have you ever heard of a spellcheck program for DG? I heard of one once, but I wasn't paying attention.

Well, yup. gotta go. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo, Carrie

Picture is of a lychis (?) I bought from Burpee as an expensive seeding.CORRECTION it's a lisianthus

This message was edited Aug 3, 2006 5:32 AM

We are just on the west side of Palo Alto. Palo Alto used to be part of the University.