Great pics, Sharon. Has Dracocephallum moldavicum overwintered? Looks like a well-established plant.
Jan

Very nice Sharon! Your monkshood is lovely & big - it's been on my "to get" list for a couple of years now. I also like your fountain grass, I would like to try some grasses but don't know much about them.

I got the macro figured out on my camera this week - all previous successes were flukes - LOL Hope everyone's not sick of macros ;-)

Here's the inside of a foxglove - ooh psychedelic! LOL
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Rose "Sonia"
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Rose "Montezuma"

More Montezumas

Rose "Garden Party"

Happy gardening everyone, enjoy it while it lasts!

WOW..Great pics Sharon and Gillian,

Sharon you always show such interesting plants!

Gillian.....I'll take one of each...haha How do you get all these different roses to over winter in z2b?

Garden is winding down now.....just waiting for more of the oriental lilies to open. And the carnations have just started to open....hopefully they won't get frosted before I can get pics.

Here's whats blooming this week.

The first oriental lily to open....think it came from T&T but don't know the name.
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The last of the glads.
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'polish spirt' clematis
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Sierra

Love your glads Sierra. I used to have a bunch but *ahem* one year I forgot to plant them... so that was it. I should get some again.

Some of my roses are hardy (not the ones I just posted), but for the tender ones I have a complicated system of burying/mulching/building huts for that seems to work. Also, I have a nice microclimate that is probably at least zone 3. Sometimes when I see people in zone 2b posting things that bloomed 2 weeks ago for me, I wonder if I'm not closer to zone 3 anyway.

Hi everyone,

I was pretty busy last week so didn't get a chance to post much.

My carnations are starting to come out quite nicely now, too and my lavatera, that I seeded so late, is blooming really well now. I'll have to start it on time next year so I can enjoy it all summer.

Just had to show this. I have two 16" pots of this that I overwintered from last year. Have they ever filled in well this year. I bought them as 6" pots.

Enjoy this week. The season change is in the air and the geese are flying!

Shauna

Shauna,

I am so envious of your alstro! Wow, how did you do that? Alstro's are my fav flower, I used to work in a florist shop and fell in love with them there, but I didn't think they would grow here at all....I would love to know how you did it.

Thanks,
Julie

Julie,

I "cheated" a little bit by buying the 6" pots and potted them up to the 16" pots right away. They are sold in the garden centres as 'Princess Lilies'.

Actually, we forgot to bring them in after the first hard frost last fall and I told DH to just bring them in and put them in the basement anyway. There they sat, unloved and untouched, until late November when I spotted them both tall, spindly, in flower with albino colouring. Flowers and foliage absolutely white. I brought them upstairs thinking they needed the light and my dear cats decided they were great litter boxes. Cut them all back, repotted them in fresh soil and put them downstairs in the light this time. With a bit of advice from a garden center, I faithfully pulled about 1/3 to 1/2 of all of the sprouts until March and then let them fly. I put them out in May and they have done the rest on their own. Next year, 2006, I am going to divide off some of them and try them mulched in the garden, as well as start some new pots up.

I tried looking for seed but so far haven't found any. So, I think division is the easiest way. The tubers are very fragile but seem to divide quite nicely. Hope this helps. Look for them in the early spring because they disappear very quickly out of the garden centres.

Shauna

Hi all
Here are some pictures from my garden from the last two weeks. I had these developed at the end of last week so they are fairly recent.

Black eyed susan vine and Chilean glory vine
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Ornamental millet

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Heirloom Scarlet Runner beans

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Helenium autumnale (Helen's Flower) Yellow and copper shades

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Daylily (unknown) and State Fair Zinnias

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Daylily Stella D'oro

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Pacino Lemon Sunflower

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My flowers are still blooming fairly well, but it is definitly the end of summer (where did it go). Any more pictures out there. The ones in this thread are gorgeous as usual.

Cheers Al

Great pictures everyone! The flowers all look wonderful, I see several more things that I am going to add to my "find out about" list. :)

Al, What is the difference between your Heirloom Scarlet Runner beans and regular Scarlet Runner beans? Or are they the same thing?

Syreeta

Everyone else's pictures look so wonderful thought I'd submit a few of my own. Hard to believe the season's almost over and I'm amazed looking at these that May 1 there was nothing but excavation here.
Kate
Threw some annual seeds in late and look at these still blooming like mad.

WOW Sharon, that Giant Evening Star is GORGEOUS!

NS, your foxglove is pretty! Now I can't wait for mine to bloom (gotta wait all winter... etc... first time for me too!)

Shauna, your alstro is awesome! They had a bunch of them in the staff room at my kid's school last year and they made the prettiest bouquette (sp?)

Here's my latest "pretties" from the garden this morning:

Ang

WOW....Looking good everyone! Keep those photos coming!

Today I noticed yellow fallen leaves around the Mayday tree, eeks, Fall is coming! Actually I don't mind the Fall season, I just hope its going to be a long warm one ;)

Thanks Jan, the Dracocephallum moldavicum is an annual in my neck of the woods so no its never overwintered....BUT, it does self-seed like crazy, they are also very easy to wintersow.

NS, your best bet is to get advice from Pudge, she's the Queen of Ornamental Grasses ;), there's a couple of threads about OG if you do a search here at the FN forum, but overall they are wonderful textures/contrast to the garden and very easy to start by seed ;)

Sharon

The only new flowers this week are my glads are finally blooming
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I dont know what took some of the little butterfly blue delphs to bloom but they are doing a great job right now
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---savona---

OMG Ang that aster is SO cool! It does look shredded. Nice glads savona, I like the pink & yellow together.

Sharon LOL I know about Pudge and her grasses - I tried to follow the thread this spring but my head was spinning. I will have to do some research this winter and see if I can find seeds for something with colour - like maybe reddish, as I have a lot of daylilies now and they look grassy. At my folk's old house I used to have some blue eyed grass I found in a field - it was really pretty and stayed in a nice tidy clump. Haven't seen it again though.

Al drat you showing off your two foxgloves there when I only have one - haha just kidding. Your scarlet runners must be a slightly different kind than mine - mine are more orangey. Is that because yours are heirlooms?

Hi all
Syreeta and northspruce there is no difference between regular scarlet runner beans and heirloom except that mine are older and came on the market in 1906 or so I was told by a lady who did a speech about heirloom plants at our horticulture club meeting. These beans were raffled off and I happened to be the lucky one. I save seed from them every year so I can keep them going.
I suppose the newer varieties color has faded somewhat because of different crosses thay have made to improve the plants or maybe they have crossed with regular beans to cause the flowers to be different.

Cheers Al

Everyone, your gardens are absolutley beautiful. I've got a few I would like to share

This is my only "Red Dutch" lily bloom

Cobea

some Phlox

some Datura, daylily and Lavatera

I noticed tonite that my Canna is finally starting to bloom so will take a picture or two tomorrow

Hey look, Stanly's cobaea is blooming! Very nice Stan, did you start it early? Everything else looks great too.

Thanks northspruce. Actually I bought it at a greenhouse and it was approx 2' to 3'long at that time, paid $3.00 for it. I've started them from seed before and they start easy and grow fast so you have to have a support. This year I planted it at the base of my clothes line which is about 12' high and wrapped some netting around it. They seem to open white and then turn purple. Will have to check it tonite. I see that I still have some work to do on properly focusing the camera

Sonja roses are a common florist rose. (Or at least they used to be when I was a rose cutter back in the mid 1980's.) I could take or leave hybrid roses, but I did come to appreciate the flower buds.

Yes Leftwood, Sonia (Sonja Meilland) is still a popular florist rose. It is probably best grown under glass as water stains its petals with dark pink spots, but it is a good producer in my garden. The only thing I don't like so much is the petals never fall off, they just hang there brown and ugly until I deadhead it. Interestingly, Montezuma is another one that doesn't know when it's time to let them go.

I'm fairly new at posting pics but here goes.........

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Brachomy
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Candy Cane cosmos

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coreopsis

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Canna (was suppose to be pink??)

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glad

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Malva

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Aster

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Muscadet lily
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another glad

Got a chance to take a few more pictures. the first is todays Cobea which is now purple

The next two are of my Canna Lily that just opened, day 1 and two

Here are some of mine this week. Since there isn't much new in the gardens, i took some "whole garden" shots.

Here's one bed at the front of the house:
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Here's part of the back of the same bed:
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And here's the other part:
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This bed had all the colourful lilies in it. Now the dendranthemum is taking up the slack:
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A closer view of the dendranthemum:
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Some morning glories in with cosmos:
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Miss Sunrise - still not overly happy with life, but still blooming:
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Hi Marciaz

Very attractive flower beds!!! I especialy like your planter in the first picture. It looks like a thick piece of wood that has been carved and placed on two short logs. Very nice!!

Cheers Al

Exactly, Al. Dh made it for my birthday. :)