It's December - let's celebrate our gardens

I noticed some poppy talk earlier, these are annual self-seeders blooming in June -

my favorite poppy pic -

beautiful jmorth
How many years have they been self sowing there?

4 or 5, got them orginally from a DGer in Georgia.

Those poppies are great, jmorth. I've never grown annual ones. Maybe I should try some. They are thinner stemmed than the perennial OP's. Can they take some wind and dry soil?

I love that one in front of the Artemisia.

Mine tolerate lots of wind and dry soil. They also bloom after the perennial types and extend the Poppy season.

Definately wind-hardy.

I've read about the Chinese forget me nots, Neal. I think I'll have to try those too. Thanks.

Lovely poppies

I've got lots of seeds of Cynoglossum amabile, and maybe some other things you may like too. I've got plenty of mixed Shirley Poppy seeds and all red Shirley Poppies. Hmmm...seems I should have some P.somniferum I saved too. I'll be looking through the seeds and putting some goodies together for ya :-)

I've Poppy somniferum seed too if so desired, d-mail me.

This annual Poppy is just amazing.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/18652/

wow

Beautiful, beautiful pictures. I love blooming with reckless abandon! I think the poppies are quite airy...at least the annual ones. They grow well for me here, but quit as soon as things warm up too much, so seeding them in early would be good for me too. How about columbine for reseeding airiness, I've loved the way they look around our old playhouse. Also guara (not sure of the spelling) which always remind me of clusters of butterflies. I've grown those from seed without much difficulty and they have an airy look clear through the summer.

Willow, I see we're birds of a feather! That's beautiful!

I found the P.somniferum seeds I saved, but for some reason I mixed them. They're mostly this salmon pink frilled one.

Willow & Gemini, Those are both beautiful plantings.

Oh gemini, we certainly do seem to think along the same lines. Those are beautiful. I really love the frilly pink ones. Tansy is another one I love for the airy look. It's tiny daisies are so pretty with roses, and the grey-green foliage is beautiful once the blooms wear out. I think it overseeds for some people, but I haven't had trouble with too much, just enough to keep it going.

jmorth, no wonder it's called Queen Kong at 5 ft. I would have to stake it here as we can get quite windy, but it really is a beauty. It would definitly be worth the time.

Viewing pics and going through those I've taken over the season are making me ache for spring- this cold, windy weather we're getting is nasty!

The bed was weedy when I took this, but I find myself staring longingly at this pic:

LOL, I found yet 2 more plant stakes in the garden yesterday. I have to stake most of my lilies. I quit growing Glads because I didn't like them enough for all of the staking they required. But, I'll stake lilies all day!

Beautiful plantings! And Neal, you've got so much in there I doubt you could spot out a weed.

Thank you, I would love some seeds, Neal. Mixed poppies is great. I like the salmon one.

Jmorth, I will dmail you. Thanks.

That's beautiful too. Sorry your weather is so bad...I'm afraid you got it from us. We're sunny and clear now, but were down to 2 degrees this morning. Our water froze so DH had to run home to thaw things out in the pumphouse, but I did get my morning coffee made just before it shut off. Here's a bed by our chickenhouse from 2008. I lost the Heritage rose last spring in a late freeze, really frustrating, but I've replaced it with a Fairy, that isn't so striking color-wise, but will be much tougher.

Stormy, I grow very few glads for the same reason- can't deal with the flopping. But those are a dwarf, hardy Glad- I never have to stake them. I think the name is 'Atom'.

Thanks Polly, so true, when you try to make it all look as though Mother Nature had planted it, the weeds are definitely less noticeable- thank goodness, LOL. .

Beautiful willowind!

We have a well, too, but the pump is in a heated garage, luckily. They are a bear to prime, let me tell you, so I really hate when something happens. I would love an immersible pump, but the well is around 400 feet from the house, in the creek, and impossible to get to in the winter if anything went wrong with the pump.

Whew, Polly!...that would be tough. Ours is just about 30 yds. from the house. We don't have trouble too often, and keep a heat light on it, but when it gets down to zero-ish, even that won't do if a wind comes up. Sometimes its frustrating, but at least there's no water bill.

Gemini, a glad that didn't need staking would be fun to try. Do you know where you found it?

How lovely! And what a shame to lose that big 'Heritage' rose! 'The Fairy' is a great rose though, and blooms her heart out.

As long as it's working well it's fine. And in the summer we can get to it to have water delivered if we run low, which we have on a couple of occassions, when something happened, like a hose broke. But I dread the foot valve going. It has gone twice, never during the winter though.

We don't have any other water available here, so can't even get city water.

I believe those came from a bloomingbulb co op, but I believe eflowergarden sells them in spring too, and they're a better supplier.

How nice to have untainted water! In summer ours smells like bleach sometimes.

Gemini, They are very nice Glads and so are those poppies. I had bought some dwarf hardy glads. I think they were called "redwing". They were red with white picotee margins. They did not overwinter or the voles got them, not sure which.

Those late freezes last year were really tough on all of the shrubs.

I love having the well water, but we have some overflow issues when we have a lot of rain that can worry me. We have a filter on the house water, and a reverse osmosis pump for our drinking water, but now that we have a paddock on the north side of the barn some of the overflow is not so healthy I'm afraid. The good thing is that DH works in town and we can just bring home a couple of jugs of town water if needed. Our worst problems have been ice storms. We have a generator for the house so we can keep heat, freezer and refridgerator working if the wires are down, but we don't have a way to get power out to the pumphouse, which of course has an electric pump, so we're without water. We have just brought in big jugs and caught melt-off for the animals. 4 years ago we had to go 11 days without power, and that got really old!

Thanks for the glad source. I'll watch for them this spring.

Willow, Seems like it would be almost worth getting a very small generator to keep out there.

We've been here 20 years. And never had our water tested. I'm afraid what I would find if we did. But it's spring fed, and it's cold as heck, even in summer, and delicious. And the creek it's in runs through our 63 acres to get here, so no one polluting it along the way, and before that it's all forest. We do have a house filter just to take out sediment. Our worst problem is ice storms also. We were stranded unable to get out for ten days (you beat me by one, willowind) a few years ago. We have a generator and a fireplace, but it was very inconvenient. we didn't have nearly enough gas for the generator, so just ran things off and on.

Country living!

Amen!...but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Well maybe during ice storms. I had to get up at 4:00 AM to get into town, take a shower at work and be on the floor for report at 6. Ugh!

Stormy, we've talked about getting another, but you know how that goes...seems like there's always something else needed ahead of it. Oh well, at least I know the routine. Funny to think that even in the 40's and 50's there were many people who still hadn't graduated to rural power.

My grandparents in the Ozarks still brought water into their house from a yard pump in 1961. It was my first visit there and I was fascinated. They also still used an outhouse, equally fascinating.

Great gardens willow and gemini-sage.
Gemini! I believe you posted a pic of pink Somnifariums growing with Lilies a couple of years ago.It has been my goal to have that eversince.
I'm almost there.
It takes a number of years for poppies to self sow that thick from a 100 seed pack from a garden store.
These pictures are wonderful.

Thanks Gen! Ya know, if the Poppies are happy with the spot, they reseed like mad the 2nd year. Come to think of it, the pink ones in the above pic are 2nd year volunteers, all from a few pinches of seed tossed out in '07.

I just found a better pic of the Iris that is similar to Willow's.

Another pic that makes me long for warm weather...

Your gardens are wonderful Gem.

Yes, they are!

Thanks so much! This was my 3rd year with this garden, and it seems my nose was pointed at the ground for most of the first 2 years. Then this spring and summer, blooms were often so abundant I was almost overwhelmed! In May and June I just meandered around with a grin I couldn't wipe off, LOL.

Same here gem.Everything DGers encouraged me to do was returned 10000% in decksitting all summer.