Yes, I actually do have a plan and while I am not there yet (are we ever done with a garden?) I feel like I am doing well in terms of continual waves of bloom. I have a few spring flowering bulbs here to start things off. I plan to put in lots more this fall. Going for crocus, Daffs and tulips. Then I have many spring flowering trees and shrubs such as serviceberries, crab apples, cherries and many types of viburnums. That takes me into Azealea flowering season and very shortly after the azealeas finish, the roses start their spring flush. Next come lily bulbs as the asiatic lilies start soon after the spring rose flush. Then the oriental lily bulbs. This year I added even more lily bulbs than last years 400 bulbs of all oriental and asiatic. This year lots of trumpets, orienpets and OT and LA hybrid lilies. All new to me as I used to have only asiatic and oriental. But I added some of those also. This takes me into daylily blooming time and some of the lilies and daylilies will be blooming at the same time. This brings me into August and I don't know how much bloom for august as I have added many late flowering daylilies last fallm should bloom late July and early august. There should be some late flowering lily bulbs also. For fall, well nothing unless daylilies rebloom. I have also been working on more bloom before the start of the daylilies and lily bulbs by planting lots of Siberian Iris, which blooms now here and am working to make a tall bearded iris bed for the TB iris I ordered comeing this july. Of course there are many other plants in the yard blooming at various times. I like Hollyhocks, Purple coneflowers, Butterfly bushes, Sunflowers, Mexican Sunflower, Catmint, Hummingbird mints, various milkweeds and lots of annuals such as marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, varius annual salvias, Snapdragons, impatients and more. Usually looks pretty good here.

Sharon - Yes, my Fortuniana EA is very big and tends to throw out some large canes, especially in the fall, not so much in the spring. I had hundreds of blooms on mine last spring, but remember my Fortuniana Earth Angel is three years old. My own root plants are no where near as large and do not get nearly as many blooms, but then again, they do not get as much sun as the grafted ones do. I have noticed that some nurseries are selling Earth Angel grafted plants that are not on Fortuniana. Maybe they would be more manageable. I find it interesting that most of you say that Earth Angel is so fragrant. I don’t smell much fragrance at all on mine, ever. As far as the Chilli Thrips, we had an awful year this year with those terrible pests. You could even see where they were on the canes as well as the leaves. I have been growing roses for close to 40 years and Chilli Thrips have been the worst pest we have ever had.

Perfectly normal for the spent blooms to fall off. Male flowers after being opened for a couple of days usually will drop off. Female flowers will drop their petals and pistils but the ovary will remain if fertilized until the seeds are mature. White spots could be from almost anything on the flowers since they are short lived. If you have white spots on the stems or leaves, then it could be mildew and that is a major problem with begonias. Your begonia is probably boliviensis or a hybrid of that species with 'Bonfire' being one of the earlier and most popular improvements to this begonia. I cannot keep it longer than a year but it does make a cheerful annual. Folks in California and other regions have a lot better luck with it. Back in 2007 I bought boliviensis (on the right) at Lowe's in a big hanging basket. Later I found 'Bonfire' in a much smaller container (I moved it to a bigger one) is on the left. Bonfire looks healthier and was more robust.

L Clark, Winnipeg Parks is probably 4x4 but she has had no winter die back in the couple of years I have had her so I fully expect 6x6 next year or the year after. When I got Golden Wings I didn't know how big I would get. After we planted it I saw it at the Denver botanical gardens and spotted on in a neighbor's back yard growing in a wild spot (not a garden bed). Both were bigger than I had room for in the spot we planted it so we dug it out and gave it away on Nextdoor. It also had no winter die back.