What's Growing - Part 10

garm - try the Monrovia website, also Mobot - the Missouri Botanical Garden - they have a big engine that allows you to put in characteristics and then tellls you possible plants to fit your criteria

I knew about Monrovia, but I love the Mobot site...I'm gonna get lost in that one! I can't wait!

Garm- I did think about your request and got stuck on the height mainly. I also thought if nothing fits right you can skip that level and have asters front and echinacea back - with the possibility of something taller in back of those.

Andrea - actually I bombed out on storage in plastic and will use all peat moss again. 45-50deg is good for me.

I did look at Bluestone and keep coming up with asters and echinacea LOL

al, good thought, but there are big boulders in back of the echinacea...no room. I put a helenium in back of one of the boulders.

aly, took a look over at Mobot. thanks...great site! I ran out of lunch hour, but I am definitely bookmarking and going back.

maybe an annual? or a birdbath? at least I'd know how tall it was going to be ;-)

thanks for the help, everybody. let me know if you think of anything else

Pixie,
I came home today to find your seeds had arrived! Thank you so much! Very nicely packaged too. I can't wait to plant them!
Dave

Al, In my previous house where I grew dahlias, I used vermiculite in a 5 gal pail and my tubors survived year after year in my unheated utility room. I know you're the pro on dahlias, so I'm assuming peat moss is better. Any rationale?

Dave - no there's nothing wrong with that, anything that will hold in moisture some is fine. Peat moss is cheaper for me. My easiest storers are my calla lily, canna I only get about half to not rot.

Gram - I can't believe nobody suggested Chelone obliqua 'Hot Lips' - its the perfect fit and likes a bit of dampness. Chelone is still going in my garden in pink pink pink. Also - there are pink Aconitum - somebody should have them.
My old blue Aconitums are in full bloom right now at that sort of 30" height. If you like Tricyrtis there are newer colors - not really a pink but I like them anyway.

oh yeah - Japanese Anenome 'Pamina'. Its a beautiful double hot pink that is about 18" tall.
I know you said you had the asters covered but there is Aster Lady in Black - needs full sun to really shine with very dark foliage and small white asters with hot pink centers.

Whah else, call me crazy but impatiens are not gone yet by any means, nor all the tuberous or fibrous begonias. I have Lobelia in the Fan series in a raspberry color that is still blooming a little bit. Its about the same color as a Stargazer Lily.

Sedum Neon is bright pink right now.

My dianthus are re-blooming because I sheared them to the ground after the first bloom. That's not reliable and its not as heavy as the first time but they are really bright.

Last - I can think of is the small shrub Hypericum Alsbury Purple which has dark purple foliage, golden yellow flowers and bright red berries all on the same plant. Not pink but colorful.

Kassia - cosmos or other reseeders will reseed best on bare ground. I have new baby hollyhocks popping up now.


these sunny fall days the bugs are crazy

Gram ~ Here are a few:
http://www.dutchgardens.com/Cerinthe/default/30589T.prd
http://www.dutchgardens.com/Fantasy-Monarda/default/29064T.prd
http://www.dutchgardens.com/Loddon-Royalist-Anchusa/default/30024.prd

In my HO, I think the Cerinthe would accent the pink if the colors are true in the picture and it has a dark foliage. But then again, the Monarda is unique......glad its you choosing a plant not me!



This message was edited Sep 26, 2006 10:04 PM

Al, cosmos will reseed??? well I am getting tons of cosmos seed... I found a good website and my mom is also bring some seeds from Brazil....

I am going to clean up an are next year to have wild flowers and a compost pile... I have tons of leaves already for next fall...

more purple of course!

Gram I re-read your post. Duh - you didn't specify just pink. I vote for all of the above plus Opal Basil. Yes - the lowly basil - it is beautiful - very dark purple and has purple spike flowers somewhat like a salvia. You can grow them elsewhere or in pots and tuck them in for the last months of the garden or grow them in place and experiment with pinching them until the other plants are failing and then let them go. And they smell wonderful if you pick a leaf.

in some years I've seen Becky Daisies rebloom in October if sheared to the ground after 1st heavy bloom. But I would use Silver Princess or one of the dwarf varieties instead of Becky which would be too tall for what you want.

Honestly the Japanese Anenomes would be beautiful but depending on variety they can be much later than July-Sept. I have the old pale pink A. robustissima that blooms first in August, followed by Honorine Jobert and Andrea Atkinson, and then Pamina is the last one that just started to open about 10 days ago. The flowers last a long time.

If you used some dahlias there are so many forms - some look just like daisies - like the Bishop series. Think about the form you want also. The mum look is not necessary and dahlias will bloom till hard frost - hard to beat.

If you want to try the Cerinthe that Pixie linked I have seed. It is a really cool plant but at my house it completely petered out by July, it was definitely a June bloomer. I WS'd those last year and will use them again next yr in containers. They were most beautiful when the plants were new - the foliage is gorgeous - silver blue with those smoky purple bracts. They greened out a bit as they aged.

Last and then I will stop beating this horse. I use old fashioned Helopsis to fill that void, the plant can be pruned - a la' Tracy de Sabato-Aust to the height you wish and you can delay or stagger bloom times very successfully using her pruning techniques. It is a flopper so your stems will easily be covered up. Other plants that are great in there also are the Heliopsis Flore Pleno - a very bright small double yellow that looks like mums the flowers are so tight, and also Boltonia. In front of the coneflowers and monarda - which I have also together, I used a small Buxus Vardar Valley that I keep sheared, along with Carex Evergold which is a 10" x 10" plant, and a dwarf variegated Hosta that also blooms heavily in purple during the time you wanted.

Heres's that Cerinthe - it looks better in person but you can't get that color many other places

I wrote a long reply to you guys last night and it's gone (sob!). I'm at work, so I'll catch up to you later. don't want you to think I don't appreciate all the great suggestions

gram ~a girl~

g~a~g,
I sent you a check to buy your plants - I hope it makes it there ;)

**entering in to the russian roulette portion of this thread**

did I post this one? anyway -this is a new near perfect flower on it, only 8" - looks bigger because it is so full.

Very nice Al. It is near perfect and a crisp clear white. I don't think its warm enough here for anymore to bloom, was 37 degree's @ 7 this morning.

al, if the check doesn't get here I'll just send you the bill :-)~

pixie, that monarda is really cool! never seen one like it. I think it might work really well there. and it fits in this garden, too. I think I'll have to at least try it. I saved the anchusa for a future blue/yellow garden I have planned. the cerinthe is really pretty. I would like to try it. so...that leads me to....

aly, I would love some of your cerinthe seeds. can I send you an SASE? I can try that for some earlier color.

I love the chelone and it's perfect for this 'butterfly/hummingbird' garden. if it doesn't work in this spot, i'll definitely work it in somewhere else. and the hypericum is a beautiful shrub, all the colors i love and a great size! it belongs in my garden, too. I'm going to have to go back and look at some of the others again. I was thinking about trying some dahlias next year, so maybe this is a good spot. I can choose some that will fit the situation here. It will make it easier to choose from the million or so varieties ;-). didn't think about the purple basil, but I was thinking annuals in pots to fill in. I LOVE basil....great idea!!

thanks so much

Ok, everybody, I'm done sucking up the thread...please carry on...thanks for putting up with me

gram ~an old lady(really)~

Pix - I don't know why you keep saying you're a 5a - don't be embarassed. My remaining dahlias are very slow, but I have a few left to open up that I will help any way I can.

I have dahlias going like crazy - they're the best they've been all year. I keep thinking of dahlias as super hot weather plants, but if you think about the PNW - its cooler and rainy there - more like our fall weather. Last year I was tapping my foot 2 weeks before Thanksgiving wishing they would die for crying out loud so I wasn't dealing with them and the turkey all on the same day.

Al, your white dahlia is really pretty!

Today was so nice. About 70 degrees. I took a camera with me on a trip to the nursery and stopped on a bridge to get a pic of this creek. The other pics are from my place.

Here's what's growing today. Nothing new.

Al, that is a beautiful white - very bright and pristine

I think I was asleep at the beginning of the summer when you all were discussing that software to do collages. What is it again?
Free or cheap would be really good : )~

Al ~ To be honest I consider my zone a 4 not a 5 as the map says. My husband comes from a long line of country boys, says it was an "out of Stater" (Flatlander were his exact phrase) who gave us a 5. "They don't live here, might have come once in July, so how the he_ _ do they know." LOL

All the flatlanders are in Illinois ;)~

I was at this customer's house who had this expensive weather watching setup and he was telling me it only recorded -9 as the low last winter and I was like I had -17 at my house I think your machine is off. I always give this other dahlia grower in Iowa a hard time because she is so far south of me and has hotter summer's but is a 4. I'm not sure why we are a 5 here - we are far too away from lake MI to help, but I do know all the areas west of here that are 4 are real sandy and cool off faster.

Andrea - I know they use this
http://www.lumapix.com/

This message was edited Sep 27, 2006 9:14 PM

Hi everyone... this is what is growing today...

Andrea, Lumapix is great, but not free. I have a couple. But the free download is from Picasa. Check out this thread.

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/617529/

Kassia,

I love those colors. Do you have any long shots of your gardens posted?

Yes, Kassia - would love to see some bed pics

Nancy, might be nothing new, but sure is pretty, nobody's got nothing on western NY ;0) You should do an I 'heart' NY ad.

there goes Kassia with 'my' pinks and purples ...always makes me feel happy :) :) :)

Al, did I mention that's a perfect white dahlia?

gram ~a girl (not as old as I was yesterday)~

It's all gram's fault! She got me started!

Kassia, those pictures are wonderful!

I Love Autumn in New England !

more..

took a trip to my brothers today...he lives up near the mountains.

The colors up his way are brighter than around home.

a small pond on the way.

On the way up......

This is "Coo's Canyon"

More....

little water fall.

Ok, nancy send the bill to the govenor ;-)

pixie, think I'll take a drive to see your brother. and you say he's a good cook, too? just beautifu!

where the water cut a path in the rock

He's a WONDERFUL cook! Can make most of my Mom's & Grandmother's dishes....yum!
Here's a hole that the water carved out of the rock and then deposited smaller rocks in it.

This message was edited Sep 28, 2006 5:44 PM