What is your best performing plant this season

We put in a Cup Plant last year and it really took oof this year and have been in bloom since late June with no end in sight what a lovely plant.

Flower: StarGazer Lilies planted last year put on quite a show.

Vegetable: Zucchini 'Black Beauty' dozens of zucchini already

Herb: Basil Aroma2

Shrub: Hydrangea 'Pinky Winky' growing like a weed.

Tree: Flowering Crabapple can't remember seeing it put out more flowers than this spring.

Evergreen: Blue Spruce which I have finally trimmed at the proper time so it is really blue this year.

Fruit: Champagne grape vines are loaded

What is a Cup Plant? Got any pics? Sounds nice.
Willie--I have a Crabapple too, but it is not flowering. What's the secret?

Last year I planted some Penstemon seeds in a deck container and forgot about them. They grew lots of foliage and then died back. This year they came back strong and before I could pull them up thinking they were weeds they bloomed beautifully. I had the pleasure of these little blue beauties for months.


Penstemon Blue Mist

Stargazers, daylilies (who knew?), and hydrangeas are huge and loving the extra moisture we've had this Spring and Summer. In fact, most sun-loving blooming perennials and annuals are doing really well now that we've finally gotten some warmth this past week.
Those that the slugs haven't gotten, that is. Grrrrrr.

It certainly is NOT anything in the veggie garden. The Seckel pear is loaded with young fruit and the blackberries are doing better than ever, too.
The Day Lilies, clematis, dahlias and agastache are the best performing flowers of the season so far. My Balloon flowers are happy, too.
Andy P

The DLs keep on blooming, so do the roses, but the best are my hydrangeas----really awesome sized blooms.

Weeds!

Silphium perfoliatum Cup Plant is the proper name ,the other attraction it has for me is the butterflies love it.I got mine at Rare Find Nursery

I must say, I have seen lots of Hydrangea this year. They like the cool and wet.

Thanks gamekeeper. I just looked them up and they are beautiful. Looks like yellow daisys. Will have to get some for my daisy patch.

Joyce

I'll second that weeds...ugh they are incredible.

Actually my daylilies are doing great and my rudbekia.

Black eyed Susans, Liatris and Butterfly bushes.

My DLs were kind of weak here, thought the Asiatics were stunning.

The crabapple does its own thing, on its own. My father bought 4 (2-white and 2-pink), and gave one of each to the neighbors next door. Joe's grew fast and furiously, next door, while we (the kids) took out the white one during a front lawn football game (yes, dad was furious) and the remaining pink one was usually leagues behind the neighbor's in growth and flowering.

Then, the neighbor's pink one developed some rusty fungus, which spread to ours (or vice-versa). Usually, by August there are no more leaves, due to the fungus, or what ever has infected it. Rarely did any flowers or crabapples form.

Joe cut his clean out a couple years ago, and I trimmed ALL the smaller branches clean off and the rest of the major branches to within 4 foot of the trunk. It now looks like harry potter's whompin' willow, in growth. But, it has kept its leaves and is flowering now.

They really do take to heavy pruning well.

I would have to agree with others that hydrangeas of all types are loving all the moisture and cloudy days. Also any shrubs I planted early this spring are thriving. A lot of plants are extra tall and bloomed a bit late. The lavenders surprisingly have been very nice too. The number one beneficiary of the rainy summer is of course weeds, weeds and more weeds.

i will jump on the hydrangea wagon as well, others have been bes, echi's, phlox, sedum is looking like it will be good - all the trees/shrubs are loving this wet weather except a couple jm's - and the weeds, i usually weed once a month or so, this year it has been every two weeks, took 6 hours sunday to get it done

I second Victor's comment. Weeds!

One of the few trees our builder left on this lot was a small crab apple. It was IDed a decade later as a Bobwhite crab, white flowers and pea sized yellow fruit the birds eat in winter.
Oh yes, the black eyed susans, rose of sharon and butterfly bushes are doing great this year.
Andy P

That Bobwhite sounds pretty!

Yes, I've never seen a crab with yellow fruit---our crab has some kind of fungus as well, starts dropping leaves in June, but it does flower, & the birds love the apples.

hands down out of my annuals... coleus kingwood karnival

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/37784/

That is a very weird looking coleus.

I will take some pics Jen.. depending on how much sun.. it changes in the color... really nice big one though

Really strange, but one Lupine is still blooming and has been since the 1st week in June.

Lupinus Androidus maybe Pixie?

Pixie, Lupines were great here also,alot of things did well in spite of all the rain.

Here ya go Robindog, Bobwhite crab apples. This is from last October, the winter moth caterpillars got all the flowers this year. The birds will have to find something else this winter. It's the first spring I didn't spray the tree while doing the 'real' fruit trees, it wont happen again.
Andy P

From spring '07.

What a beauty!

We spray with horticultural oil in t he spring for winter moth. It is done just as leaves begin to appear. It has cut down the number of moths & leaves the birds intact.

Bt works well if used every 10 days.

mostly KK coleus

best one this year for sure

it does change depending on what light it's in though

Beautiful! KK hangs nicely to not be a trailer. Your giving me ideas:-)

I ran out of trailing cuttings... 2 trays wasn't enough... LOL.. I had so many of them from NC farms that I said what the heck.. just fill the hole!!

this one was planted real late... so it's tiny... but look at the red in this one.. just about full shade here

Nice coleus! Mine are teeny tiny due to the alck of sunshine and over abundance of earwigs, slugs, and JB.

Both of those reds are nice.Pixie, take a cutting and start one elsewhere, maybe you'll get better results. This summer has been weird thou, weather wise.

pretty Pixie!!