August Blooms part two, into Sept possibly

Gita it this what you are referring to http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/231/
melampodium, earlier name Butter Daisy

They are easy to grow from seed, just found that out this spring.

YES! Thanks "lady" . Nice pictures of the seed-heads. I have never looked! Will do so, for sure!

I love them to fill in around borders. They bloom ALL Summer and Fall--all the way to frost....

Gita

Pretty! Yes, those do look like melampodium (couldn't click to enlarge last night).

Here's a close look at some "creeping zinnia" blooms.. also a powerhouse bloomer and great filler plant!

My neighbor love those creeping zinnias too! The first time I saw them was at her house; she has them in pots.

Our asters are really pretty this year

Jill,
Those are really pretty.....Annuals--right?

wind--
I so love the asters, but have not had any luck with them coming back. What do you do to have them be true perennials?

I have bought 4 mums this Fall. I plan to plant them around the KK Hibiscus I just moved to my round front bed--(see fall Clean-up Post---will go there soon and post the process...)
Most people have NO luck with the Mums you buy and plant. Someone told me they cut them back and mulch them for the Winter.....
Any other "secrets"? I SOOOO want my Mums to come back!

Gita

Yes, the "creeping zinnia" is an annual. I've saved seeds and started them inside successfully.. a 6-pack of seedlings will cover a good bit of ground!

I've tried to keep mums, but even if they survive (cutting back and mulching helps), I'm not good enough about pruning and pinching them, and they look awful. When I can get such nice ones for $3 to 5 in the fall, I think I'd rather treat them as annuals...

I am glad to know that other respected gardener friends also have trouble with getting Mums to live after the first season. I have never had any luck either.

Holly, I am sooooo jealous of your plant room. I am drooling over it. For several years now I have been mulling over the idea of adding on to the house. I just showed this picture to John and now he is talking while I type with his ideas on the subject. ha-ha His idea is to turn the existing spare bedroom where houseplants have spent the past two winters in to the "official" plant room. This would be the cheapest and least invasive way to go. All this would involve basically is to take out the existing small window out and replace with a sliding glass door or possibly a set of french doors. I might ask for this as my Mother's Day gift or some gift for 2009. I have been talking about it too long, it is time for some action!!

Anyway, thank you all who have taken the time to share their beautiful blooms here. I am seeing some really lovely things.

Ruby

I have had some success with mums lasting for years, I think it depends on the mum itself some are more hardy then others. I have one lavender colored one that has come up for many years, I had given a piece of it to a co-worker and she had success with it to.
I have also bought ones from Bluestone in the spring, figuring they were grown closer to my area and more hardy, those have been growing for several years also.
I think that a good mulching or snow covering in winter helps, the ones next to my drive way gets the snow covering from the snow blower all winter. However the lavender one in right up next to the east foundation of the house so might be in a micro climate.
Very seldom do I buy the big baskets or pots of mums in the fall, unless I see one of those "must have that one" for color, I don't think they have enought time to get their roots established in the garden for winter.
The purple and bronze one have been growing there for about 4 years, the bronze one is a cutting I took from a Bluestone one I have in an other area of the garden.

Sounds like good advice on the mums, ladyg
Here's my first ever Montauk daisy bloom. Very hardy plant altho a bit rangy so I will try to take someones advice and pinch next year.

Tithonia that self sowed- has only been blooming for a week. Very tall, but a nice stopover for butterflies- and ahem, cuke beetles, The cuke beetles check in but not all check out.

I just love the color and the velvet textured stems of the Tithonia, sadly I don't grow them more.

SEPTEMBER BLOOMS AND COLORS

Gorgeous! I hope those birdhouses have seen more use than your "official" bat house, LOL.

Lady, why am I not surprised that if anyone could get a mum to live, it would be you. You truly have a way with all the green. Every picture that you have ever shown here shows superior looking plants.

Doc, I love the huge stand of Sedum Autumn Joy. We have several huge clumps of it who have all outgrown their spaces and need transplanting. We plan to give away a lot of it and eventually find a spot such as yours to have a bed of all Sedum AJ.

Sally, great pics.

Ruby

Ruby LOL, Thanks, but that is because I only take pictures of the nice looking plants, I have killed many a Innocent plant over the years.
Here is a thread I started of some problem areas.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/898453/

ladyg- I agree on tithonia but its so tall and rangy, this straight species one, and very late to bloom ( when self sown and ignored)...

Sally, you reminded me why I don't grow tithonia more. If it was more compact. Talk about late blooming I noticed my Pineapple Sage is just starting to show signs of buds. And the Hummers are all gone now.

you should see todays Fun Picture article--a 'hanging in there ' variation


This message was edited Sep 27, 2008 11:04 AM

I spotted a hummer this morning on our salvia black and blue :)

Wind: Do you grow the black and blue from seed each year?

Lake Erie Report..........hummers are all gone now. We still have them but soon they will move on. We must be a bit warmer here. This is not the first time I have become aware of having them a week or two longer than reported in the lakes area to my Northwest.

Happy, I have a black and blue salvia I planted last year. It overwintered fine but does come up late in the spring and it's in a somewhat protected spot.

Hi Happy, I like it so much I usually buy one plant every year, just to be sure I have it. Usually, it does over winter though.

What is really hardy, and surprising does self sow like crazy, is the plain salvia guaranitica. It looks exactly like the B&B, just without the dark part at the base of the electric blue bloom. The hummers love it too.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/72954/

Reminds me that I once borrowed a library book just all about salvias, which included a statement something like- Every gardener goes thru a salvia phase. Maybe better- theres a salvia for every phase of your gardening career.
happy- six or eight Forest Fire coccineas that I grew from your seed has become a nice bushy patch- hopinfg for plenty of self sowing there.

They will. but if you save some seeds and give them a head start, they will be a lot bigger. Otherwise they might start sprouting in the middle of summer and won't get very tall.

Hmm- to be expected, my Coral Nymph does bloom late--but does get tall anyhoo. To the garden, avec baggie!!

Here's Salvia 'Forest Fire' today, maybe two feet tall

claypa--

Love the mix of fire red and purples.....

You seem quite the gardener--do YOU have a secred to making mums come back next year? The ones sold everywhere.....I have now purchased 5--and sure would like to have them come back next year. Not sure if I want to plant them--or can them when they are spent....

Thanks, Gita

PS. Geez! DG is so S-L-O-W loading today!!!!! Anyone else having problems????

All I know is some are hardy and some aren't. I read in the newspaper that many growers use some growth hormone to make them grow like crazy and bloom in time for sales in the fall, and that makes them grow in the nice compact ball shapes we see. And usually they won't come back in that form again. But some do...

The only other thing I've heard is to never cut the dead foliage until you see new growth in spring. I don't know if it's true or not, though.

The one in the yard here that came with the house spreads like crazy, but never grows in any compact shape at all - I have repeatedly tried pinching them back in a genuine concerted effort to make them look like something besides a groundcover, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Some plants snake up through the yews out front and look really neat, as if the yew itself were bloooming, which is really cool. I ripped them all out a couple years ago, so there are only a few plants now, instead of forty square feet of them. I'll have pics soon, I'm sure.

There's a beautiful bonsai chrysanthemum at Longwood that looks like a four foot long stick of driftwood with flowers coming out of it. I guess they're not doing their mum festival this year for some reason.

DG seems ok here, I've loaded few pics no prob.

Claypa--

Now--I KNOW you have to pinch them back at least twice--but never after July 4th.

I HAVE SEEN IN mA AND PA nURSERIES AROUND WHERE i LIVE HOW THEY PINCH THE YOUNG SHOOTS BACK WHEN THEY ARE ONLY 5"-6" TALL. (SORRY...DIDN'T SEE THE CAPITALS......)

Then when they branch out--they pinch them again and maybe again. Mums take a lot of hands-on to get them to the market! Maybe that is how you get them to be a "ball" of bloom.

Someone once also said that if you look at the base of a Mum as you buy it--and you already see some new growth there, that means it is more likely to come back next year.

Re cutting it back in fall......

Our local "guru" that had a radio show for eons always said to cut them back half way in the fall so the drifting leaves would catch in the remaining stems and act as a loose mulch.

Some people right here in Baltimore have told me to cut them back and mulch them---kind of almost the same thing.

Some people say it depends on the type of Mum. I'll buy that the most!
I used to have a light purple/lavender Mum that came back every year. No matter what!

I guess I'll just go by instinct.......

I am planning to bury the pots 3/4's into a bed without taking them out and transplanting them and then see if they are coming back. What do you think about that?
Then again--I should just plant them in the ground--as they will have a chance to grow a bunch of roots and anchor in.....AH---decisions....decisions........

Gita

sounds like the ones here who have success with mums are keeping them prettty dry over winter.

Soo--Sally,

If we have a wet Winter--then the Mums won't make it?

Would it be better if I just put the pots under an overhang, against the house, and buried them into a pile of leaves?

How can you keep something dry outside???? Rain....snow.....more rain.....

I suppose we all might be overlooking the reality that even the fullest pot of Mums (6" or 8") is only ONE plant and has only ONE stem it is growing from.
Pretty hard to have a bush come up from that!

gosh I really don't know--just guessing based on few comments here.

Moving on to the October Blooms thread myself

Moving over to October blooms.....
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/908926/