I love lilies for their stately appearance and scent... but hate the red lily beetle battle. We live along a river and worry about pesticide run off. So there are only two clumps in our yard. However, we do have many varieties of daylily. These are one of my favorite flowers... but my DH is not crazy about them. He thinks the long slender leaves and the same green tones look boring. The compromise was to place them among plants with different leaf textures and colors. And I have to agree with him that this helps to hide the ratty look of day lilies as they mature. (You're so right about that, Kevin.) A favorite new day lily is H. 'Light the Way' which I found at Bloomingfields Farms in Gaylordsville, CT. These are magnificent! The stems are very tall, which means the plant can be tucked behind shorter plants and the whitish blossom will peek out above its neighbors. Here is what LtW looked like the other day in our gardens. The flower color is more like the second shot...green and white tones. One "problem" ..... day lily clumps can get enormous and crowd out other things, even when divided. That happened in our small yard. The 6 tiny Hemerocallis 'Malaysian Monarch' fans that I planted years ago spread like the plague. We gave most of them away to a friend with lots of property. Molie

This is a great thread and it is one I have been following earnestly since it began. Here is what is still blooming in my garden as of August 13, in no particular order: Lycoris chinensis Patrinia scabiosifolia Verbena bonariensis Echinacea 'PowWow Wild Berry' Calamintha nepetoides Allium 'Millenium' Allium 'Summer Beauty' Allium nutans 'Pam Harper' Agastache 'Blue Blazes' Agastache 'Blue Fortune' Agastache 'Golden Jubilee' Agastache 'Purple Haze' Hibiscus 'Summer Storm' Hibiscus 'Plum Crazy' Lilium speciosum album Lilium speciosum rubrum Phlox 'David' Phlox 'Old Cellarhole' Phlox 'Jeana' Phlox 'Caspian' Phlox 'Peppermint Twist' Phlox 'Mile High Pink' Helenium 'Mardi Gras' Geranium 'Rozanne' Geranium wlassovianum Rosa 'Quietness' Rosa 'Jude the Obscure' Rosa 'Rose de Rescht' Silphium perfoliatum Gladiolus 'Carolina Primrose' Gladiolus 'Bolivian Peach' Gladiolus 'Boone' Thalictrum 'Splendide' Thalictrum 'Hewitt's Double' Perovskia 'Blue Spires' Eupatorium 'Little Red' Nepeta 'Joanna Reed' Geranium 'A.T. Johnson' Knautia macedonica Solidago 'Little Lemon' Salvia 'Black and Blue' Geranium 'Blue Sunrise' Scabiosa ochroleuca Angelica gigas I have included plants in the above list whether they are in full bloom or have just a smattering of blossoms. We finally have pleasant temperatures and rain in my neck of the woods, and I think I can hear my garden sighing in relief. Here is a list of plants I have that still have not bloomed and/or are currently forming buds: Various sedums Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' Solidago 'Fireworks' Various asters Various Korean mums Aconitum 'Barker's Variety' Anemone 'Honorine Jobert' Artemisia lactiflora 'Guizhou' Various colchicums Various autumn crocus Helianthus 'First Light' Salvia azurea 'Nekan' Allium 'Sugar Melt' Allium tuberosum Allium thunbergii 'Ozawa' Allium thunbergii 'White Form' Scilla autumnalis Lycoris squamigera For the past couple of weeks, I have been putting in as many late blooming hardy chrysanthemums and asters as I can find and afford. Without a doubt, gardening will become more challenging in coming years due to climate change. Included below is a photo of the stunning Lycoris chinensis:

With more than fifty years of gardening, I haven't vegetable gardened in a long while. The market is more convenient and cheaper. I do like vine ripe tomatoes, haven't been able to grow them for the last four years. I have fruit trees that don't set fruit, or very little, because the springs are too cold and wet for pollinators. My rhododendrons are growing like crazy but didn't start flowering until two months after they normally flower. My cape fushsias and normal fushsias are just now starting to flower, well past their normal times. My hardy bananas, bamboo, palm trees are just now starting to show growth when they normally started in March. My eucalyptus are doing well, but most mountain eucalyptus like cool better than warm or hot. Even my native plants like douglas fir haven't put on growth like they normally do at this time of year. Normally they would have two to four feet of leader growth by now, not one foot or less. This is what I am talking about!

pjtexgirl - I just had to share this story with you. I remembered you saying boxwoods smell bad, so I sniffed one when I was at Lowes one day and couldn't smell anything. I was at Callways last week and they had the Green Tower Boxwood, so I bought it to go next to my front door. The longer I drove around with it in my car, the more my car started to stink. I recognized the smell instantly. I used to have this neighbor and I noticed that smell every time I walked up to their front door. It smelled like a musty smell to me and I always assumed that maybe they had some water damage in their house at one time and the smell never went away. Needless to say, I took the shrub back a couple of days later. My mother was in the car with me when I took it back and her first thought was that it smelled like cat litter and I remembered you saying it smelled like cat urine. No more boxwoods for me!!