Photo thread two. It's peak season, share your pictures:

I've been trying to grow this for several years, I finally found out that it likes the shade.
Lilium pardelinum - Leopard Lily.

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Bananas

Two more in a new garden.

New to me- Penstemon cyananthus.

Ooh, great pictures. You are going to have a regular banana forest! Love the leopard lilies. I have good luck with asiatics and LA's but have not been able to grow the species lilies very well. I do have a few tiger lilies, but I have spent a fortune over the years on rubrum speciosa, and have never seen a bloom.
I hope my jackmani-superba looks as nice as your friend's some day. I learned to avoid type 2 clematis and to go with ones that don't wilt. Jackmani is in the non-wilting group luckily.
The penstemon is a different shade of blue than I have seen before.
Your Annabelle is georgeous. I have two but neither has bloomed. One is on its second season though.

Loved seeing your photos Kenton. I don't have good luck with hydrangeas, but will keep trying. I have planted bulbs of L. pardelinum but only lasts a year or so. Especially liked your new garden picture with the used!!!!!! wheelbarrow,. I have 3 wheelbarrow, so that one is nearly always available if the other two are full of something.

Here is another picture of last winters rabbit damage to young trees. A seriously girdled Eddies White Wonder Cornus.

And yes all three of my children are gardeners especially my daughter.

Donna

Donna, I'm so glad you were able to eat at Christopher's - that's one of my favorites and four of us gals who get together for birthdays, always choose that place. Your whole trip sounds delightful - hope there were enough shops open in Langley to make it worth it. That's my favorite little town on the island. And, of course, Molbak's!!! You and your daughter really made the rounds - good for you!

Jamesco - marvelous photos . . . that Penstemon is glorious!!!

Thanks, lets see if I can keep it alive.

Donna, pity about such a nice tree. I just saw a nice "rabbit-proof" english gardening plant list, I wish I knew where it was.
Three barrows is a good idea! A friend of mine has three pruners and three trowels out in the garden at all times, so wherever one is gardening, a trowel or pruner is within reach.

Paja, were yoru rubrum speciosa in the sun, as suggested? I have two species Lilies- the pardalinum, and henryi, the latter is pretty tough, likes the sun, and gets tall.

My rubrum speciosa is/was in the same bed as my other lilies -- a substantial amount of sun but a bit of shade as well. I planted the last ones last year and so far have not seen a flower. My other lilies -- Asiatics probably some LA's do fine. Orientals tend to last only a year or two. The soil is pretty good, but I don't feed them much. They are on an automatic sprinkler and everything else that bed does great. I'll have to try the two that work for you.

I got involved trying to grow Louisiana Iris here this summer. I traded for two rhizomes but had to have them shipped here because there was no one at the farm right now. It is iris Gamecock. I planted them in 1 gal. pots and soaked them good. They sat there for a couple of weeks trying to decide whether to die or not, so I put the pots in a plastic dishpan full of water. In to time at all they had started to grow. Maybe rubrum speciosa also likes lots of water? I think acid soil is probably what they want.

Kenton - is P. cyananthus difficult? I don't understand your comment about keeping it alive.
I have to be careful about what Penstemons i plant because it is too wet for some - does the opposite hold true for your area? Just my curiousity...

Oh, I mean that P. cyananthus is new to me, I don't know. Honestly, it looks great after a week of 100F weather immediately after planting. I have seen Pens drown- but this was an extreme case with overwatered turf runoff. That we have clay soil makes drainage horrible, but it is dry by nature. Pens are so tough here, that cvrs of strictus are used by landscapers- and survive their mistreatment! Once established, they seem to grow according to how much water they have.

Betty, the first thing I wonder is if L. speciosum rubra wants a lot of shade here. I've met other folks trying to grow Japanese Iris. The successful ones, I think, have them in their ponds.

Yes, Japanese Iris require lots of water, but LA's don't require as much. Nevertheless, they don't mind it.
If I can find my rubrum speciosum, I will try moving them to a shadier spot. Or if I can't, I will order some new ones after I find a good spot.

I guess I have missed this thread. I need to pay more attention. Beautiful Kenton and Donna. Enjoyed while not being able to see my garden at home. Seattle is beautiful and the gardens here are fun to partake.

It's lily time! I think this one is Crimson Pixie.

I t rained for a couple of hours this morning, was wonderful. Can't imagine the kind of rain Oklahoma and TX have been having. It is sprinkling hard again. Sure does smell great after a nice rain. I took this picture this morning, it is a clump of Asclepias tuberosa with a yellow lily, very colorful.

Donna S

And here is another photo taken after the rain. Love the rain drops on Pirates Patch daylily.

Paja, beautiful lily!!

Donna, great photos! Were you in need of rain? We really haven't had much here - not enough to do the watering anyway. But it hasn't been Summer-like weather at all, except for a day here and there.

It is very dry here as well, but that is normal for this time of year. It is hard to keep up with the watering and our weather this week is predicted to hit the 90's. If you can keep them wet enough this great for tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.

Someone on another thread tried to tell me that it is a very BAD idea to plant lilies in 75% horse manure. All you know me, I don't listen so good. So now I have a patch of lilies 4.5 feet tall, with 8-10 buds per plant. And they look like this:

Delphinium and Cleome

Echinacea "White Swan"

Allium with morning dew

Liliy "Gold Dust"

Rose "Sunset Celebration" and lilies

Grandiflora Rose "Queen Elizabeth"

Found this really great standing trellis at the farmer's market: $50, 5' tall, and they have more if I need some others with the same design.

D.A. rose "Brother Caedfel" was getting too heavy to be supported by the underplanting of Jupiter's beard, so I trimmed back the Jupiter's beard and threaded the rose up through the base of the trellis. It will take a couple of weeks to fill in

Closeup of top of finial

Daylily "Afghan Pride"

greenjay, really liked all your photos. Especially interesting is the Allium and raindrops. I too would have snapped up the great tuteur. Your rose will look great growing up through it.

DonnaS

Rose garden now has a bench!

Here's what happens when you build a lovely shade garden -- *someone* will find new ways to appreciate the flowers that you really hadn't thought of:

Usually I see this particular bunny when she is taunting the crap out of my dog Sweetie. This time she was laying in the new shrub border, taking in the shade while I sat on the bench less than 3' away.

Your bunny doesn't seem in the least bit worried about you. She also looks very well fed. Are you feeding her alfalfa pellets to keep her out of your plants? She really is a nice lawn ornament -- a whole lot cuter than those plaster ones they sell.

On horse manure:

Without it I wouldn't have a garden. I don't know what the fuss is about it burning things.

well I wish the "lawn ornament" would stick to all the lovely weeds (and she does eat the tender ones), but truthfully she and her litter(s) have taken a toll on some of the seedlings I planted this spring. But I am learning more about what "rabbit resistant" really means -- adult rabbits eat what appeals to them. baby rabbits try everything and THEN decide what they like. How else can I explain the crocus leaves that got mowed down in April? Fortunately they don't care for roses or daylilies or echinacea, most salvia, and lilies AFTER they are a foot tall. Alas many of the smaller lilies got chomped also, but they will come back strong next year.

The flailing and moaning about horse manure appears to be from a fear of fusarium wilt and other rotting diseases lilies are prone to. I suspect that our dry environment may help there. Also the super drainage in all my raised beds. But the manure sure does make for some HUGE lilies.

This message was edited Jul 1, 2007 6:12 PM

Marvel-marvellous, all.

What is the name on that odd orange lily, GreenJ, do you know?
I like the obelisk finial. Fleur-de-lis are in.

Donna, that lily is beautiful even before the flower open.

I've got a handful of Orienpet lilies (GreenJ, you need 'Scheherezade' in your horsey-soil) blooming that I'll have to post later, as well as the successful albiet short-lived Magnolia flower. it is just so hot here, 103F is not on, not at all.

Praise Horse dung, it is the fastest-acting soil enricher I've ever used.
I once tried quite deliberately to burn some plants with fresh horse and it didn't work.
K

Kenton,
I, too, out of desperation, have used fresh horse manure -- just because it was all I had. I have never burned anything with it. Of course, the composting helps keep the weeds down, but in a pinch, it works just fine fresh.

Incredible photos - and I'm interested in the horse manure info. I could get some fresh, but have been warned that unless you know for sure what the horses have been eating, you shouldn't get it. How confusing!

There is lots of mythology that surrounds all of gardening. I suppose you could get really picky about the horse manure you get, but I haven't worried too much. What do they eat? Alfalfa or other hay and oats. I don't think people spray alfalfa a whole lot. Not sure about oats. I suppose you could seek out horses that eat only organic hay but I think it would be hard to find. Horses also get wormed regularly, but I have never let that worry me. It doesn't seem to have harmed my garden, in fact it has really improved my plant growth enormously and I have been doing it for some years now. I have several sources of free horse manure and use them all.
Except for insecticides on the hay, it is hard to imagine what a horse would eat that would hurt the garden. Maybe you should check with the people who say that.
My friends who give me their horse manure also help me shovel it, on their end.