Noni,I'm making notes on some of your flowers.I never realized there were so many different primroses. That lanium maculatum that is light pink that you said it blooms all summer. Can they take the morning sun? I don't recognize that variety of forget-me-nots with the yellow centers. Is it the wonderful camera that you have that makes it look so large. I do have one that has grown kind of tall but I don't remember it having any yellow centers. I'll have to go out in my yard in the daylight tomorrow and look. The ones I sowed were called "Blue Bird" I think. Last years didn't get very big. I'm looking for some type of perennial that I can plant under or in front of my 3 rosebushes..something in blue, or yellow. One hot pink rose, one yellow and one coral. I had ice plant there but just dug it up because it was spreading into the rose bushes and my garden phlox, so I'm giving that away. Anything in front of the rose bushes would be getting the morning and early afternoon sun. Any suggestions?

Creeping phlox I have seen be evergreen in some areas. Woodland will die back and while setting seed it is prone to powdery mildew a major hair cut is needed soon after seed set. It blooms pretty early in the season like the woodland phlox. Creeping phlox usually gets to a height of maybe 4 to 6 inches where as woodland gets to maybe 2 to 3 feet. The blooms on the woodland are maybe an inch to two inches in diameter where as the creeping phlox maybe half an inch in diameter. This phlox shown here is a native species. Here in tennessee the old timers call it sweet william. Most of us call dianthus sweet william, lol. I always laughed at the hubs when he called this plant sweet william. Both phlox's have a beautiful lovely aroma. The native phlox will reseed where as most not all but most creeping phlox are hybrid and they do not set seed. :(

Eww love the thread cause I love collecting seed!! Almost started a thread like this myself. I tried to collect from my phlox divartica and I be dern I totally missed them, I have never seen a plant produce seed and drop that fast. Ugg I sorry if anyone wanted any but I failed on that miserably!! It is dormant so I will be happy to send some if anyone is interested for postage. I did manage to collect from my muscari grape hyacinth and my dianthus barbatus is starting to produce seed and my gailardia is almost ready. Another treat is the virginia stock that I sowed this year I am already collecting seed pods from that. I was pretty excited to find out how easy it was to collect seed from that little plant. The pods look like miniature little beans, how neat!! I noticed it has been weird with some of my plants, I mean the phlox I have never tried to worry about collecting the seeds so I had never timed that but that was a fast drop. My poppies are just starting to bloom and usually they bloom way earlier in the season. They look kinda weird this year and the bloom it self it is kinda like something keeps knocking the bloom off then one day I went out and the entire thing had just crusted up like it was a week old and it had just bloomed the previous day. Something is weird anyone else noticing this? I am not sure about your columbine or your poppies hopefully someone will come along and help you out!!

I've always liked underplanting combinations of spring bulbs--a purple crocus with a yellow one and then balanced with a third cultivar that has striped purple, white and yellow. Other little bulbs popping out of late winter lawns have alwasy been underutilized in the US--especially the tommy crocuses and anemones. I'm a lover of inter-mixing early and late season tulips to extend a display, and moreover, playing these tulips off of each other--one tulip may be yellow but it's companion is orange with a yellow fringe, etc. COmpletely steps up the display. Same with a little zone in a lawn that has snowdrops surrounding nice clumps of cheery yellow daffodils. I've noticed European gardeners grasp this design layering very well. Tamelask hits a great color combo--listed as CA poppies with phlox--but I was introduced to with the darkest violet shade of the Easter Bonnet alyssum underplanting a rust and orange french marigold. Sounds incompatible, but wow does it pop and really add electricity and a sense of "happiness" to a bed. I've used a bed of apricot colored violas with orange gerbera daisies coming up out of the violas ever 12" or so. Other combinations that work is the use of contrasting textures as compared to overstuffing containers in the US with 30 different plants, most of which get overgrown in 4 weeks and turns into a nasty, leggy version of an english cottage garden. This has occured int he use of many-a-tropic plants all over. Such a shame. Tropical plants are formost known for their foliages (as tropicals are year-round, their flowering is usually short-seasonal). Thus, fewer tropical plants allowed to reach their true majestic sizes in a pot is how it's done in the tropics. Building on that tropical use theme, placing a large solid leaf (like a colocasia) with the whispy, feathery texture (like of a foxtail fern) will also bring attention to your eye because of the contrast. You can see only in black and white and still gain great pleasure in a planting that has spikey plants juxtaposed with round, mounded plants OR big leaves around frilly leaves, OR solid leaf coloring with one with speckles or stripings,etc. Tropical colors that are grossly underused in the eastern US are the combos of red, orange and purple with each other (in close proximity). This is in stark contrast to the stiffer "northern European/British" tradition of pastels. I'm seeing mroe of this on occasion, but if you travel the tropics, you realize pastels are an exception (white is for noctural pollination) and you have that riot of colorations to gain attention of insects and animals in sunlight. OUt in the desert SW, there is natural arid and mediterranean plants with the bolder color combos so you see a much better use of orange, purple and red in California garden designs.