I love the larkspur with them! I have it and it pops up everywhere, but not with my hollyhocks. I'm going to sow seed with them!! Even the orange flowers look good. I like the whole combo!
Hollyhock photos anyone?
Thanks the orange flowers there are roses but I also have some cosmos and CA poppies that pop up sometimes. When the larkspur go to seed, just deadhead and shake the seeds where you want them.
They all sound like good matches. I love cosmos. I bought Seashell and Red Crest seed this spring. I have a bag of saved larkspur seed from last year. I got seed from my grandma in 1982 and have kept it going ever since. It started out deep purple, but I find blue and double varations now.
Oh - how beautiful! thanks for sharing. I just love the larkspur with the pink hollyhock and the oranges. I tend to love a mix of colors, as well, but blues and pinks are my favorite. My cosmos are still tiny - can't wait for them to grow up and bloom.
That's so special about your grandma's larkspurs, billyporter! I have some white iris that my 102 year old uncle raised for so many years. They bloomed last year - the first year, but not this one. I just love the family heritage aspect of gardening.
That is a neat story too!! I hope they bloom again. Do you have trouble with iris borers? They can kill your plant before you realize it.
This is Zephyr Lily. My Grandad's Mom had them and someone in the family kept them going. I'm now keeper of the flame. I just repotted them.
I'll have to look up iris borers. His iris grew in Oklahoma City - much colder than our place out north of Houston (8b). I won't even try them in zone 9a. Because they bloomed here, I bought several bearded iris starts on the spring coop. A couple of them bloomed, so I have hope.
I love your zephyr lily, and the family history of them. So, so special. My uncle and my mother are the reason I love to garden and be outdoors.
This is my 2nd year to grow hollyhocks - and I have all kinds of seedlings. I never knew I could grow them here - it was an experiment!
Hollyhocks in Huston? How Cool!
That is great looking Z-lily, too, BillyPorter...a big bloom. Glad you're able to keep it going.
C-P That is an awesome picture. It should be on the front of the Mother's Day cards!
Suzy
I agree about that pic! Mother's day card for sure. I'm planning my color scheme for the next bed on that pic.
I too was amazed at hollyocks here. (these are in zone 8b just north of Houston).
Thanks! I often makes cards for friends and family and that shot is in my "card" file. LOL! billyporter, love that lily and the look of it with the old greyed wood.
This is a red one looking over my walls. It is about 4 feet tall now and the blurry background is the blooms on a pomegranate and a desert willow tree. As for my colors I really should admit that I let things reseed so many of the combos are Mother Nature's choice.
Thanks everyone!
Iris borers are the ruination of iris.I have been using the borer granules containing the poison thast begins with an I. I am going to have a good show of them this year. There are blooms I haven't seen for a year or two because the borers almost killed the plant. I have to wait for them to get big enough to bloom again.
Cactus, that is a strong plant! Look at all the buds!!
I thought a hollyhock would grow just about anywhere. When I was a kid almost everyone had them.
Me, Dad, Missy and hollyhocks in the background :o)
Ah - that is such a special picture, billyporter! You and Missy are adorable, and dad looks so proud :)
What does an iris borer do to iris? The iris that I inherited from my uncle didn't bloom this year (their 2nd year north of Houston - from Oklahoma) and it looks like it's dying. Maybe too much spring rain - or not enough?
My mom never tried to grow hollyhocks in Oklahoma, and I never saw any until adulthood and thought they were fabulous. Mine have now faded out and have lots of rusty spots on the leaves. Two years of beauty is more than I expected!
Bookworm, I just asked a disease question on an Iris thread - you might want to take a look and see if there's anything familiar to you on that thread... http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/850948/
Billy, that's a great pic. Did you see the thread we had earlier of older family/ gardener pics? That would have been a great addition.
Thanks for the link pagancat! I'll go there now. I realize I was a bit off topic...
Eh - not many care much about that, I just hope you get your answers!
Thanks!
Sorry to have been gone so long. Actually, I had answered about the iris borer and lost my post. I never got back to re-answer.
No, I didn't see the old gardener thread.
Off topic is fine. We obviously have no HH's blooming for new pictures :o)
Billy,
You can send a old one, like I do. This is not my beautiful garden>
That is pretty. Looks like the staked them? I never do, not that much wind here usually and I cut mine back mid summer when they quit blooming, then they bloom again before winter. These are the same ones but I like that they have gotten so tall as to get the mts. in the background. I have lots of blooms in all 3 of my HH beds, but just don't have photos and they are the wine or pink. Don't have any other colors blooming this year.
Here's a photo of my hollyhocks taken on 6/22/07. This year's patch is very full and may be in bloom in a couple to 3 weeks. It's great how they reseed. The patch is different each year. I always need to stake mine once they start to bloom since we get such heavy winds these days. For me, the perfect stakes are the green metal garden fence posts. They're so easy to hammer into the ground and they really hold up well.
Dale_a_gardener, I wish I had room to do a patch of single colors! That is striking! I wish it was my beautiful bed!
Cactus, I love the mountains in the background. What a perfect backdrop!
Figaro, I'd love to have a fence like that too! It really lets the colors show! We seem to be having a windy year this year. I'm getting mine moved to the east side of the garage, so I don't know if I'll be staking or not. I did when they were in the garden. I had north, west and east winds there.
These started flowering today. Supposed to be 'Single Black'. oops.
Billyporter, I so love the mts. as a backdrop. We have on every side. I never had a view at all before so I am in heaven, never want to leave this house. ; )
claypa that is beautiful and much prettier than a black one to me!
Okay, gardener error - the 'single black' flowers are on the next plant over, just opened today. We had 2 inches of rain a few days ago and now the temps are in the upper 90'sF, so things are moving quickly in the garden. Bugs, too.
claypa, those black HH's are pretty, but I still like the others on the left better!
Me too - I figured the 'black' would really be just dark purple and would look okay together. We just had a big storm and they're still standing. They're tall enough to be seen from inside the house, which is fun. Now I just have to try to stay ahead of the hibiscus sawfly larvae - now that they have hollyhocks to munch on, they're leaving the hibiscus alone.
All of your hh are gorgeous and I had some that were 7 feet tall last year, the dark almost black ones (Watchman I think). Anyway here I am in Maine and the japanese beetles attacked and ravaged them. I started by picking them off but then they started having orgies and I swear the gestation period for their babies must be all of 3 days! I swear they were having threesomes! Anyway, anybody else have japanese beetles on their hollyhocks or is this just a Maine thing? I am so sad and feel like growing them anyway but I wish I had a picture to show you how awful they were!
They were terrible here last year, defoliating entire trees in some cases. So far, so good this year. It takes them a year to reach adulthood - you've probably seen the grubs in your lawn.
In my HH patch they always try eating the leaves early in the season. Once I notice and deal with it, the problem seems to go away. I bought some Milky Spore last fall, but have yet to apply it! Hopefully that will eventually get rid of the grubs and beetles. Also, thanks to Mother Nature, I have fewer roses this year to feed them!
I had my milky spore all picked out and everything, but the guy I was talking to said it was too early to order (Feb) and that he'd send me an emial at the proper time, but he didn't, and now I forget the company!
Claypa, if it takes JB a year to reach adulthood, hasn't it been a year since last year?
The JB like the Hollyhocks, but they LOVE roses and dahlias, so those were much worse hit. How worse, you ask? Here's the pic. from last July 20. It is Alfred Grille, a humongous and gorgeous dahlia.
Suzy
UGH!!!
We don't have JB here, and boy am I glad. I never heard of them until reading the posts here at DG--that photo gives me the "willys" LOL!
Suzy, it looks like you've really got a problem with the JBs. I used to have problems with bean beetles attacking my dahlias, so I stopped growing green beans. (FYI - My dahlias are normally planted in the veggie garden -- along with the glads and cannas!)
You can usually find some good Milky Spore deals online.
Good luck.
Suzy, maybe I missed something, but musicmonkey of Maine mentioned a three-day gestation period for J. beetles, so I just mentioned that it does take a year from their mating to become adults.
If you mean since we had a lot last year, and now it's a year later, shouldn't I be up to my eyeballs in Japanese beetles... who knows, maybe some environmental / weather / disease / predator catches them sometimes, I don't know. Maybe they'll chomp everything in sight five minutes from now, I wouldn't be at all surprised. :(
Yeah, C-P, I didn't know that the JB aren't west of the Rockies until last year. The Dahlia forum is comprised of a lot of people in the Pacific NW and they were sort of mesmerized by the description and visual I provided. I have always lived here and just thought everybody had JB.
Claypa, Sorry, I just saw that and thought maybe there was a year of relief for me. Actually, I have had a whole lot of perennial gardens in my 30 years of gardening here, but each time they are "leaping", we decide to add on to the house and whatever planning and garden I had gets crushed or covered up with a mountain of soil.
Then I got into daffodils and you can't put any perennials over them because then they can't come up, so for years and years and years I had those gigantic 36" single wispy marigolds here, and the JB don't like those.
So I join Dave's, start another garden, and lo and behold! my pals are back IN FORCE! It was pretty depressing, but I enjoyed walking around the garden each evening with my bucket of soapy water and hand picking them off...oh, also I decided to "go organic". LOL! Although ou can't really spray for them because systemic sprays don't get into flower tissue, and they are beetles with that hard shell and regular sprays don't kill them. (Don't know ay of this as fact, just what we've always been told).
Figaro, yes, I had done my research for online suppliers of the milky spore, but in Februsary. The salesman promised me the reminder email so I didn't bother writing down the name of the company...stooopid me!
Suzy
iiioquin..so sorry..I feel your pain. ;( Something has eaten all my green beans... guess what ever it is they don't like peas. Those are fine so far...
Claypa, It's a very pretty pink! Almost a watermelon candy color. The whorls inside are hypnotizing.
Cactus, how wonderful to have a view! I don't have much, but I enjoy what I have!
Claypa, such healthy leaves! The black are pretty. I like them with the pink! I have a green leaf beetle that like to eat my hibiscus, hollyhocks and anything else they find tasty. They've only been around two years. I'm anxious to see if we have them this year. They're related to the corn borer.
Musicmonkey2, we have japanese beetles hare, but not too bad. I have roses but always used systemics. This year I'm not, till I see whether the bees go to my roses. I never see them, but I'm guessing they do. I kill every white grub I dig up!! I have for years and I don't find too many any more.
Illoquin, what an exellent horrible picture of JB's.
Figaro52, I thought I was the only one with dahlias in the actual garden, with the glads and CALLAS! :o)
Beahive, do you have bunnies? They love green beans!
billyporter..some sort of bug is eating my green..no bunnies.
Pea's are still going with no problem.. Taste good too! Tried one last night..could not resist..
back to hollyhocks..my first one of the season is getting ready to go. I am very excited!
Mine were about 7 feet tall and had all bloomed. So I just cut them all down today. The summer annuals cover the stumps and then they will come again and bloom a second time this fall.
Interesting too that we didn't have JB's when I lived and gardened in Eastern NM and that is technically east of the Rockies. But like I said, I know nothing about those critters, never seen one.
This message was edited Jun 20, 2008 10:27 AM
You can see my Hollyhocks and other garden blooms here
http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb196/soulgardenlove/June%20Blooms/?albumview=slideshow
Susan
This message was edited Jun 20, 2008 5:21 PM
Here's a shot of my hollyhock patch from earlier this week. After taking this picture I've noticed a couple of deep red ones starting to bloom.
