Good morning all, Happy Autumn to everyone! Can you even believe it? Seems like yesterday it was spring and we were all planning all the summer festivities and here it is another summer gone. As Im looking out at the September gardens here I have to thank all my Idyll and Garden friends whove given me so much information and inspiration over the last four years. There never used to be this much interest in the fall gardens. Ive learned so much here not to mention making friends for life. One of my lifes many blessings. So speaking of friends, I so wish you all could have been here for the afternoon yesterday. We started in a bit of a rush because Dougs cars battery died at the grocery store and he was stuck there for the longest time and got home barely in time to mow the lawn. I was running late because he was running late and anyway I was just finishing getting my hair put up when Chelone arrived. Normally Id be in a froth to be running that late but, no worries, these friends just are so laid back and mellow, no problems. Everyone arrived within twenty minutes of each other and Les and Monique brought up my bargain urn which took several of us to decant from Les minivan. Here is a pic I love the egg and dart detailing around the rim. What a buy, $50. for this because the corner is broken off. Detailing on the sides Anyway, originally I was going to put this in the way back on a rock I have back there but Im thinking I want to keep this in the front of the house as its such a beautiful piece. After we got the urn out of the car we had a lovely, leisurely tour of the gardens. As Ive said before and Ill say again, there is nothing as enjoyable as sharing the gardens with other gardeners. The high points were the Charles Grimaldi and all the lovely fuchsias are putting on quite a show at the moment. I was able to get some ideas for the new shrub border and show everyone the new pieced, rock mowing strip I put in a month ago. While we were doing the garden touring Doug was making salad and opened some wine then caught up with us outside and brought us a beverage of choice. What a peach! After the tour we settled in on the patio for our al fresco dining event. We started with Dougs famous smoked salmon served with the diners choice of pickled ginger, sour cream with dill, capers or hot pepper jelly as a garnish. I dont know how he does it but it is seriously the best salmon Ive ever eaten. Saucy brought a lovely home made bean dip, and a brillian bruschetta, Yum, yum! Wendy made her splendid spinach/feta/lemon dip. (Recipes please ladies) and Les made his gustatory delight guacamole. So who needed dinner after those appetizers? Well, we persevered, took a short breather and did justice to the main course of a crisp, tossed salad, Chelone brought fresh tomato/basil/mozzarella salad, Doug prepared grilled, marinated zucchini and the piece de resistance supplied by Sue/Tom/Monique and Les, gigantic prawns, marinated in garlic, cilantro grilled to perfection. Monique took some pics of these brilliant edibles from the sea and I hope she shares them with you all today. They looked like little lobster tails on the platter. What a superb meal! Whoops, almost forgot the corn on the cob but maybe I was trying to because Im now the laughing stock of the group because I eat my corn one row at a time. So maybe Im a bit OCD. LOL After another breather to make room (yes indeed there were home made desserts as well) we had Moniques magnificent apple cake with warmed caramel/pecan sauce and Wendys wonderful chocolate org - sm. (She assures us that really is the name of this decadent dessert.) Ahhhhh.. I dont think I need to eat for at least two days now. LOL As I said hopefully Monique will post pics of the food selections. (However, she really could avoid posting that unfortunate photograph of me and Doug with our faces pressed into the screen door. ) OK Ill post this then read the Idylls as there are lots of comments I want to make. Deanne

I'm in. Will email to confirm. Wish list is broad (will include in package): Height- 48" is about as tall as I'd like Blooms bigger than 2" are preferred for my wide-open areas. Haven't met an upright sedum that I didn't like The brighter, the better- pastels tend to disappear in my gardens- white is welcome! Generally love anything with a well-behaved habit- things that are "mounding" or have a "compact" or "clump" form Always on the lookout for interesting heucheras to add to the collection. Don't rule it out if it's 'common,' because I do love my liatris & marigolds- got any named or newer ones or a liatris other than the 3-foot purple? Any Butterfly stuff (looking for "Bouquet" Dill) Please exclude: groundcovers, tall cosmos, herbs (other than butterfly ones), "xeriscaping" varieties...that's about it. I'm open to most anything. Thanks for hosting, Token!

They are Rosa chinensis minima which I gather are the original miniature China roses. I got the first seeds from Vessey's but after that I harvested the hips and collected the seeds from my own plants. I no longer grow them from seed - they just seed themselves. A couple of seedlings appeared 100' or so away at the edge of the woodland garden a few years ago. They were in too much shade to bloom but I left them alone to see what they would do. This year one put out canes about 6' long - it looks like it has decided to be a climber in order to get more light. I staked it, leaning it into the bottom branches of a white pine. It'll be interesting to see what it does next. They are a lot of fun to grow - the seedlings start blooming when they are about 3-4" tall! So, if you want to, it's easy to be selective about what you grow. I just planted whatever I got though. They're a lot of fun - I highly recommend them.

Hi Rhoni Ann, Lots of people are painting red/orangey-red brick homes nowadays. If you're a fan of the Fixer-Upper TV show on HGTV, you've probably noticed that Chip and Joanna Gaines have totally transformed the exterior of many brick homes by painting that red/red-orange brick in all sorts of lovely shades of gray, creamy white or beige. After they add new trim and sometimes shutters and window boxes (depending on the style of the home and the look they're going for), along with new landscaping, those homes look just as transformed on the exterior as they are on the interior. Keep in mind that once you paint your brick, assuming you are going with a lighter color, it will reflect heat and light, but I have found there are lots of plants which grow well on the hotter west and south sides of homes that what a person might expect. First of all, if you will amend your clay with compost or some other organic material before you plant, then your plants will do so much better that it will blow your mind and you won't have to water nearly as much. We have dense, thick red clay (the kind you could use to make clay pots) that had zero organic matter when I tested it when we moved here in 1999. When they dug the holes for our percolation test for our septic system when we built our house, most all of the water remained in the holes after 24-hours, which explains why we have a lagoon instead of leach lines. Along our south and west facing walls, cannas have done really well in only lightly amended clay. If you plant the tall ones that get 4-7' tall, they will form their own mini-wall along the bring wall, and they don't really mind the heat as long as you water them occasionally in summer. They die back in winter, but you can cut off the ugly dead foliage at the ground so you don't have to look at it all winter long. Cannas are very strong, resilient plants, fitting into my favorite category of plants that I describe in this manner: they won't die and you can't kill them. In front of those taller cannas, you could the short, compact evergreen shrubs of your choice so you'd have something green there year-round. Some of the shorter varieties of hollies would work, and hollies come with many different leaf shapes from the very small leaves of yaupon hollies to the larger leaves of other forms of holly. If you don't want evergreen shrubs on the west side of the house, you could plant daylilies, lantana, gomprena (aka globe amaranth), zinnias, cosmos and some perennial members of the salvia family. All of these do well in well-amended, well-draining soil and only need moderate amounts of water in summer as long as they are well mulched. Or, you could plant ground cover type plants that thrive in full sun. Purple wintercreeper is a lovely greenish groundcover that is low maintenance. We just cut ours back to the ground with the string trimmer once or twice a year. It turns purplish-green in the cold season. Its flowers are not very obvious but then they give you lovely little berries. Hollies, by the way, are one of my favorite plants for clay soil because once they are established many of them are really drought-tolerant as well as heat-tolerant. If you like crape myrtles they are very heat-tolerant and come in all sorts of sizes, from more tree-like forms that can attain 20-40' Crape Myrtle Trails--Varietiesin height to weeping forms only a couple of feet tall. Be sure to purchase named crape myrtles varieties so you can Google those varieties before you buy to ensure you're getting the right size for your area. Sometimes the ones sold at places like Wal-Mart don't give a variety name on the tag, so you have no idea what you're getting. There's nothing worse than planting a big variety of crape myrtle in an area that is only appropriate for a small to medium sized one because you'll spend tons of time trying to prune back the big one to keep it small enough. Depending on the color you ultimately choose to paint your brick, you might like some of the Black Diamond series of crape myrtles with their purplish-black foliage. They would look striking against a lighter colored wall and they don't get too large. To give you an idea of the many kinds of crape myrtles available, I'm going to link the page of the Crape Myrtle Trails of McKinney, TX, which is my favorite website for Crape Myrtle information. I haven't tried Rose of Sharon on the west side of the house, but it probably would be alright. I have several kinds of hardy hibiscus in the border around our large veggie garden and they are both heat tolerant and drought tolerant. They are growing in heavily amended clay in raised beds, but there's a couple of smaller ones at the lower north end of our heavily sloping garden and they are equally heat and drought tolerant, growing at grade level in soil only lightly amended. Another perennial flower (often considered a reseeding annual, but perennial in my garden) that doesn't mind the west side of a building is tall verbena, Verbena bonariensis. It is one of the most heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant plants I've ever grown and is a real butterfly magnet. I use lots of autumn sage (Salvia greggii) plants as they tolerate heat and plentiful sunshine. They are perennials and are semi-evergreen. Sometimes they bloom on and off throughout the winter here in zone 7b. I just shear them back pretty hard right before new growth begins in early Spring to keep them more compact and more manageable. There's tons of options for the west side of a house. Just avoid things like hydrangeas that must have afternoon shade in our climate and avoid plants that need perfect drainage. Good luck, and if you have more questions, I hope you'll ask them. Also, watch for the Master Gardener's plant sale in your county, which has a very active MG group that puts on a great plant sale in the Spring. This year's plant sale is May 11th. More info about it can be found on the website linked below. Pottawatomie County Extension Service Webpage The Master Gardeners have a display garden at the ag extension building and you might visit it to get some ideas. Dawn