Very nice. I think your random rudbeckia might be gaillardia. Perhaps your small pink flowers are guara? I couldn't tell. Well..maybe not. Still fun to look.

Very pretty pictures!

That 1st pic under Random Rudbeckia is a Gaillardia aristata :)

Vera

Great pictures! I especially love the Rudbeckia 'Cherokee Sunset'! I may have to add that one to my wishlist.

Your unknown Penstemon might be Penstemon barbatus 'Coccineus'.

Bonnie

Alison,

great pics. I want your nautia, it's huge. of course i dug up mine, and moved it in early spring and finally got the other one you gave me last year in the ground.
You saw it blooming with a weird color.

The little tiny pink flowers are cynoglussum amabile mystery rose tamarillo.
The sun, heat and humidity must be getting you cause you got the seeds from T&M WS them for yourself and for me. I have mine planted and they are blooming in my beds too.
They are also known as chinese forget me nots pink.
here's the link that you sent me last fall/winter on them from T&M

http://www.tmseeds.com/product/1334.html

Fran

Oh, thanks for the correction on the Gaillardia that I thought was a Rudbeckia. I have a hard time telling the difference. But Gaillardia aristata sure sounds familiar, Vera.

Maybe the sun and heat are getting to what little brains I have left, Fran. I don't remember sowing that pink forget-me-not. I guess I forgot it. Hehe.

I'll save seeds from my knautia this year and maybe sow more this winter. It's weird how mine came from the same sowing last year as yours, but mine is basically burgundy (even more red than the picture shows), but yours is more lavender.

I love the Cherokee Sunset too. It actually flowered its first year, but only a couple of the blooms were double, this year it's twice as big, and all the blooms are double. I love it, I'm definitely doing more of them. Last year I had some coreopsis tinctoria planted near it, and it was like little baby and big brother. But the coreopsis is an annual, and didn't come back or self-sow.

Does anyone have their ruds in dappled shade with fair to good drainage? I'd like to put some in a new bed next year if they do well there.

I have many Rubeckia that grow and thrive in my prairie bed that faces east. It only get sun until about 2pm :)

Vera

Alison,
This is even stranger with the nautia. This is the transplanted one that I moved to the new bed.
Im positive it is one plant. I found it blooming this way today, hubby took the pic as I can't walk on the lawn for a while after the surgery.

The other nautia you saw blooming was the one that didn't get in the ground till this year.

Try to figure this out

{{gwi:414853}}

I enjoyed your photos and appreciated the fact that there is someone else who "loses tags", since I have NO idea what type of gaillardia, rudbeckia, penstemon, etc. I have - but still enjoy them the same. Your plants look terrific - better than mine with this drought we are having!

Carrie

Beautiful! I think you're right about Irish Eyes and Burgundy Gaillardia. The unknown pink flower looks like my Dianthus armeria, which came up in my yard as a weed.

My yard is entirely dappled shade and good drainage, and my Rudbeckias seem very happy--when they're fenced off from the deer :(

Very pretty, Alison.

I really like to hear when people (Besides me)
a. lose tags
b. can't tell the difference between ruds and gaillardia

Karen

Thanks for the compliments. I don't feel quite so dumb now. It's not just me. Sometimes sticking hundreds of little handwritten tags in the ground looks dumb too, though. Kind of ruins the natural look of the garden.

I am definitely going to do more ruds for my dappled shade bed. I don't get deer, but I do get groundhogs. They have devoured my echinaceas that are near their hole. I bought some Deer-Off and am going to use it, also bought a bunch of Dollar Store garlic powder and hot pepper flakes, and I'm going to pour them down their hole -- the one they climb out of under my shed.

This morning I ran out of the house in front still in my nightgown to run off some bunnies who were eating morning glories. I'm sure I gave the neighbors a treat. Aren't MGs supposed to be poisonous? Or at least some kind of hallucinogen? I must have druggie bunnies.

dawiff, go back to the dollar store and buy all the dollar wind chimes you can get your hands on. then hang them around the plants the umm ah, 4 footed critters are attacking. make sure they are low enough so that when they go near the plants they have to bang in to them and they will make noise, but also high enough to also blow in the wind. It helps with the keeping them away.

I didn't get mine out in time and you saw what "chuck" did to my lupin. they where hanging around the lupine last year and nobody bothered with it.

Trust me, you don't have druggie bunnies, besides it's the seeds that are poisonous with the MG and give the high. same with the seeds of foxglove, salvia, poppies and all the other goody seeds.

Deer off hasn't worked for anyone I've known, nor has any other attempt with stuff that supposed to keep "our 4 footed friends away".

Don't think the garlic poweder and the hot pepper flakes will work either. If the groundhog doesn't like the entrance/exit hole because of what you did to it, they will just dig a new one. The odds are they already have quite a few entrance/exit holes already, they usually have several.

Good luck and welcome to the never ending battle with these awful critters.

Fran

You know...as long as they bloom...it doesn't REALLY matter what the latin name is. (OH...I know. That is heresy. But really.) We are growing our gardens to delight out minds and souls and if we can be delighted by unnamed species...well, there ya go.

I don't know the names of any of my daylilies but I still love 'em.

Linda,
Don't get me wrong, not complaining, i think the 2 colors on the plant are really cool. it's just curiosity as to how it happens with this plant.

Unnamed species don't bother me in the least. I don't know the names of most of my daylilies either. Curiosity will get me to try and find out, but if i never do, that's ok too.

I love my gardens as they are and WS has made them better than they could ever have been

Fran

I don't mind about unnamed species either, but I do want to get the species right! I'm putting in a partly to mostly shaded bed in the back, and since we are near wetlands, I want it to be a native bed (although not necessarily native to Massachusetts). From what I've read online, both Gaillardia and Rudbeckia are natives, but it looks like the Ruds can take more shade. So far it's mostly purchased Heucheras, Tiarellas, and some spring ephemerals, and if I can brighten it up with something that's blooming now (and is easy to winter sow), that would be great.

Love your pictures.
Jill