Fran! Wonderful! I love your Zinnia,I am going to collect those types this year,I love them! Your Spider Flower is just so pretty,I cant wait for mine to get that tall!I am definitely going to try those Easter Egg plants next year,my son will love them in his garden,they are so neat! It is amazing how they look like a real egg! I had visitors like yours and I had to enclose my yard with a rabbit fence,they pretty much almost put me in the nut house! I would go out in the middle of the night with a flash light checking to be sure they werent out there having their way with my plants! I lost a few things to their hungry little mouths. The babies gave me the most problems,seems like the adults are a little more picky,I hope he behaves himself for you! :)
Thanks for sharing your pics,I love looking at your gardens!

Your flowers look great. I've a had a few rabbits in the yard this year but they haven't as yet bothered the flowers.

Cosmos candystripe is beutiful. I wish I did not have dial up. I cant see all the pictures. Boo hoo. Barb

I love that candy stripe cosmos if you have any extra seeds and wanna trade let me know. But lovely flowers.

So what happeneds to the "egg" on the eater egg plant does it fall off or turn ito something else.

Paula

Pretty, Fran.

Karen

I didn't realize that Diablo came in white and pink. So nice.

Is the zinnia "Old Mexico" sown as HOS? The white blooms look a bit like profussion white or another small white I grew years ago.

How big does the dwarf balloon flower grow? I have the tall ones and would like some dwarf ones. Will have to check my seed box as know I have lots of different balloon flower seeds.

I love your cosmos. My self seeded ones are just starting to bloom.

Rebbits have pruned my Purple Prince zinnias several times. Will have to grow them in the fenced area next year.

Well, that rabbit or his/her relatives did not behave. They hit the gazania plants again, just as they where full of buds. Seems that gazania is #1 on the list of rabbit food in the flower beds.

Now the chipmunks and groundhogs are not particular, the first thing the find goes down the throat.

BUT

They do not like marigolds, and will not go near plants that have marigolds beside them or around them.

So next years plan is 100's of marigold plants used as an edging all around the beds, sort of like a fence of marigolds. At least it's worth a try to keep the 4 legged critters away.

Angie, Paula, I should have plenty of seeds of the easter egg plant.
In the fall the white easter eggs start to turn yellow and when they are bright, bright yellow, they are ripe. Then I pick them off, but them in half, then each half in quarters and let them dry to get the seeds for next year.
The fun look is that you have various colors on the plant as the "eggs" start to ripen ranging from pure white to starting to turn yellow to bright bright yellow.
Oh, when you feel the "egg" it feels like a real egg as well, feels like an eggshell on the outside.
The irony, to me, is it starts out looking like a real white egg, feels like a real white egg and when ripe, turns to the the color of the bright yellow yolk of a real egg.

I've seen various information on them with google searches that say they are just ornamental and that they can be eaten. I've just decided to leave it as a conversation piece of plant growing in pots in the garden, since I haven't been able to get a clear answer as to whether they are safe to eat.

Paula, I should have plenty of seeds from the cosmos candy stripe for trade, the seeds are just beginning to ripen now. Will be posting in mid Sept for trades

Mnswgal, i planted the zinnia "Old Mexico" in HOS of about 10 seedlings at a time.
All the seeds where from a burpee commercial pack of zinnia old mexico seeds purchased at K-mart. They had all their seeds from the time they came in to the store through the late spring at 40% off. Did get several packets of seeds there of burpee and martha stewart brand.

Anyways, they where all sown at the same time in 3 different containers and believe it or not, they bloomed with 3 different types of blooms. the one above and these 2 blooms

this big clump of old mexico that is blooming as it it supposed to look except for one bloom if you look carefully on the right of the pick, there is an old paler flower in the middle of the clump
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and this bloom of a clump that bloomed totally different from what it was supposed to also, but I do like this one as well and the entire clump is like this
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The dwarf balloon flower grows about 8 inches tall. I'll have tons of seeds of them once the pods ripen, but it takes forever for them to do so. At least another month before I have ripe seeds for trades, but will have them

Thanks Karen

Fran

I enjoyed your photos, fran - but was a bit worried when I saw the rabbit. I've had some in my gardens and they do like petunias also, so be careful. I've set a Have a Heart trap to relocate them, but they just don't go into the trap. Can't say that I blame them.

Loved the egg plant - so unique and such a conversation "piece"...

Carrie

Carrie, one of the only plants the rabbits haven't touched for me is the petunias, but there are marigolds right beside them so that might be why they have left it alone. I usually have them in hanging pots, but this year decided to try something different.

I'd love to relocate the rabbits from my yard, along with the groundhogs and chipmunks. If it isn't one 4 footed critter getting my plants, it's another.
On the other hand, it is illegal to relocate wild life from one location to another in MA, so I haven't done it.

I was going to play around with making a sling shot to use on them, I was a pretty good shot as a kid, but then I found out that they are illegal in MA too. ranked right up there with knives, guns etc.

Isn't that easter egg plant a conversation piece. I just love it and should have plenty of seeds for trades and SASBE in the next month or so.

Fran

Fran,we will definitely do a trade this year! I think I may have a few MG's you would like and possibly some others!

Be warned,my rabbits sought out my Marigolds and ate the heck out of them! I am now just getting blooms from my Snowdrift,they should have been blooming awhile ago! And in previous years,I used the plain old orange ones as bait,to keep them away from the plants I was worried about,it would work for awhile until they consumed the whole thing and would start searching for more. But who knows,maybe rabbits in MA have different tastes! I tried everything with them,down to clumps of "used" cat litter,nothing worked until I fenced it all in. I am sure it would be quite expensive and not a reasonable option for someone with a larger space than me,my whole "lot" is only 175 x 50,and 1/3 of that is house and front yard. I wish the marigolds worked for me,because I hate the way this fence looks!

Angie, looking forward to a trade, collecting cosmos seeds, lots of different zinnia seeds, 2 kinds of marigolds, hardy foxglove, pink chinese forget me nots, I'll have tons of candylily seeds, datura, coreopsis, oriental poppy, hardy hibiscus, and more.

I'd never be able to fence in my yard. I live on an acre of land, including house and some woods. Beds are all over the front of the house and in the back.

So far around here the marigolds are keeping the rabbits away, but I've read that the marigolds have to be the ones that have the typical marigold smell. Some of the new hybrids don't have that smell and the rabbits love them.

Have you been growing the the ones that smell or the the unscented ones?

Fran