Gosh, I love it when people can remember what they planted and where. Not me, lol. Well, my Johnson grass is doing beautifully, the native trumpet vine is blooming it's heart out, the white flowered weed that I call 'sticktights' are doing great. Now to the things I actually planted and want in my yard, the amarillis have finished blooming,(planted in sheltered area south side against back of house) My red twig dogwood was interesting when in bloom, most of the spring blooming shrubs have finished, Noticed blooms on my double pink hibiscus, the red and white should start shortly. The day lilies are really getting going. My redleafed barberries don't need to bloom to be striking.
Most of my hostas are not happy, lack of water I think but the bigger leafed ones are beautiful though not blooming yet. Just came in from mowing and an soooo hot my brain is upset and not working right yet.

I figured out what those other plants in the back yard are--they appear to be bee balm, from the looks of the blooms. Rather strange looking things. And wasps appear to like them, also. May have to rethink that one a bit--at least move them away from the house.

Two of my cannas have blooms beginning! This is the first year for blooms. They were gimmes a couple years ago from the neighbor lady down the street who was complaining about having to dig them up and divide them. She just didn't know what she was going to do with them and couldn't bear to throw them out. I'm such a helpful neighbor and all, I offered to help dig and divide if I could have the extras. The bulbs just appeared on my front porch one morning. I thank her frequently--especially since she started picking up after the little 4-legged dust mops she walks through the neighborhood every morning...

My muskmelons are blooming, but they're not even really forming vines yet.

first batch of sweet corn is starting to tassle. Never got around to planting popcorn this year. Guess I'll have to go see Orville...

Hi Maryl!

I was in your neighborhood the other day and drove reeeeeally slow by your house to peek at your gardens. BEAUTIFUL! Don't mean to be a stalker, but I just couldn't resist! I've been too busy with family matters to do much in the garden, but, my daylilies are blooming, Clematis are starting to wind down, roses have finished their first flush and are resting up for the next. The grass looks horrible with the drought we've been having. I'm so thankful for the recent rain, even though we lost power for 8 hours Thursday morning.

I haven't even taken any pictures with my new digital camera yet this year. Everything has been somewhat neglected this year so I'm not real proud of the yard here. I hope you are having a great summer!

I am being plagued with Box Elder Bugs this year! Nasty little things are everywhere, but they don't appear to be hurting anything. And I read that they don't bite. I only wish they would eat the pesky bugs.

Nice to see ya on here!

Sheryl

Hey Sheryl, you can stalk me anytime....I'm plagued with Thrips on my roses more then usual this year. Hardest bug in the world to kill on roses IMHO. They want $137.00 for Conserve (biological control) to kill them. Not cheap to go organic....I see my cone flowers are starting to open, and the Crape Myrtles are gearing up. What a great shrub/small tree. I think we take them for granted some time..........Off to the Tulsa Daylily show. Ought to be fun.......

Lots of brilliance here now. Echinacea, shastas, liatris, monarda, day lilies, oriental lilies, verbena, salvia, veronica, sedums. I've been out deadheading shastas. EP
{{gwi:1112577}}

Beautiful landscaping. Certainly goes with your screen name.

Wow! Nice photo of a great yard/garden. What are the tall white bloomed plants, EP? ARe those daisies? My goodness, they are sure tall! Or, maybe they just look really tall because they are on the top terrace above the wall?

Yes, those are the shastas. Those are all divisions of 2 original plants that we got years ago. EP

Enchanted--How often, and when, do you divide the Shastas?

I've had one group about 3 years now, and another bunch only two years. They're growing so well and spreading out so much I just hate to do anything to them. Can I leave them without dividing, or will the center die out or something?

Thanks!

Ooooooo....ah.......oooooooo.ah.......oooooo....ah.....

EP - your garden is soooooo very beautiful. There is another well-known gardener in our state with beautiful gardens and that's Nancy Farha. She has or had a website and you can look at her plantings there. But, EP, you should have Oklahoma Gardening come visit your garden, it's that pretty!

My is a haphazard cottage-type garden. There is no rhyme or reason for anything; I just buy what I am interested in growing, and find a place for it. OKC1 is the planner here. She is very good at it. Me, I'm just sloppy, but I like it anyway.

I really want to plant on my front easement, but I'm scared to death to do too much. It's a small area, and that is where the city's connection to my water is located. Last year, there was a leak, and those guys don't give a dang where they dig! So, I'm afraid to plant anything I really LUST after out there. Maybe I could just do a wild/native flower garden with seeds next spring. I do have a hibiscus out there, but it's on the other side of the side they dug on last year.

Once again, so very, very lovely, Enchanted Place. The name is quite fitting.....

Susan

That is very reinforcing since 'Oklahoma Gardening' has been our best source for education. We started out with some grassy, rocky, hard to mow slopes and terraces.. mulched out the grass, added organics, and now have easy to care for areas. The south terrace had been full of grass, black eyed susans , and crown vetch. We initially sowed zinnias until the perennials matured, then began dividing the perennials and adding a few larger things such as the buddlea and rugosa roses. I know we've had the shastas for at least 15 years and that they have been divided 2 or 3 times. Each division yields more plants. Then it takes a couple of years for them to grow back to maturity but they are good for a few years before it is needed again. Another plant we've had similar experience with is the Stoksia aster. We divided those this spring and they are doing very well. We have decided we have about enough of everything. We still use as many zinnias as we have room for because they are so brilliant and beautiful. EP

I grow the Shasta Daisy "Becky" and was dividing it every year. One spring I just got tired of it (the dividing was getting old) and pulled it all except for one small sprout that was stuck in the shade. That was 4 years ago. That one little sprout kept increasing until I have a full patch of Becky once again. She's just beginning to bloom, and I'm glad she's back. I guess I'll have to start dividing her again next spring.

I can relate to needing to divide. When I first see my garden in the spring, there's a small plant here, and 3' away, there's another small plant, and so on and so on. By the end of May, I cannot delineate between where one plant stops and the other begins. I have to be real careful when I am thinning out one plant, but want to leave another, that I don't grab the wrong thing.

I guess my daylily (everblooming) is not going to bloom this year. Every single stalk blasted. Oh, well, next year. My mower man mowed down my disporum 'Night Heron', but I have lovingly been cultivating, and was marked, and he chopped up my 'Nikko Blue' baby hydrangea that was about 6" tall and wide, with totally obvious leaves on it. I guess, since I can never get around to mowing myself, I should be thankful that I don't lose more than I do. 'Frau Reiko' is really showing off now - she's so precocious! But she has to try harder, since she's a lace cap (like the women lawyers I know). She has those lovely bluish purplish sterile flowerets in the middle, and the pink and white picotee flowers around it.

The gold leaf bee balm is beginning to look nice. It's still a baby, but I have pinched the new growth so it would get bushier, and now it's trying to bloom already. I'm thinking I might pinch off the bloom tips to get some more foliage out of it.

Growth on much of my garden is slowing down as it does in the summer with perennials. Now it's just a game of trying to keep everything alive until fall.

Susan

Susan, you couldn't have said it better. My front border is just about to peak now, but after that it's just a struggle to keep things alive until it cools down. My non gardening friends wonder what all the fuss is about when they come to my house in August. Doesn't look like there's much in bloom. How right they are. I'm just proud if there is "green stuff" around (instead of brown stuff)at that time of the year.

Hallelujah...bless you, sister. In August, even I (who loves to garden), am beginning to decline right along with the plants. It becomes an effort to get out there before it gets unbearably hot, to deadhead, pinch back, pull weeds, water, mulch, cultivate.....you name it, and I probably won't be doing it.

I remember one summer when I was recuperating from God knows what that time, I just gave up on trying to keep up with the yard. I was tired, not feeling good, and I just told myself, Susan, "its okay....you can just buy a bunch of seeds next spring and start over..." Well, was I surprised when everything that went dead as a doornail out there, came back in the spring? Yes, and thankfully so, because, after I had the winter to mull it over thoroughly, I was berating myself for letting it go.

I think plants are much tougher than we give them credit. And that year, they certainly proved it. And, oh my gosh, forget the grass. I try to water down the sewer line in the back, just so the tree roots don't get too anxious to find the water in my sewer. And I really SHOULD water around the perimeter of my house to prevent settling, but I haven't done that yet either.

oh, well.....I have the best of intentions.....

Susan

Speaking of watering around the perimeter of the house to help keep the ground under the foundation from swelling and shrinking, a builder in a northeastern area of Saginaw, Texas instucts his home buyers to install a soaking hose all around the house along the foundation. In that way the watering keeps the soil at the correct moisture level without creating errosion problems and an expensive water bill.

At the same time that soaker hose also supplies the foundation plants just the right amount of moisture in the soil at all times. Then the foundation shrubs and plants stay healthy enough to hide the soaker hose so that unsuspecting onlookers never see an ugly hose around the house foundation.

.....and that's another thing I intend to do when......

Susan

Soaker hoses are wonderful!
I have them almost all the way around the house and will have them on all but one side next year, when I finally get something planted along the east side of the house. They save so much water, time, and money and the plants do so much better with them in the heat. GEtting the water where the plants need it without overhead watering is wonderful.
I've had them for about five years and have only had to replace one section. I leave mine in year round.
How about the rest of you?

Does it always take tiger lillies forever to bloom? They've been sitting for weeks with the buds or whatever they're called, teasing us, but they refuse to open. I noticed tis evening that one of the bud things was turning orange instead of green, so I hope that means that they're going to open soon. Two or three of the plants have grown in almost an "S" shape trying to find the sun. Guess they're a bit too close to the house and they had to lean out to the south to get the sun. Once they found the sun, they started growing straight up again. I suppose I should move them out a ways next year. Then again, they're rather unique, and that's a good thing in my book.

plaidthumb, our tiger lilies are just beginning to open. They normally begin opening around this time. EP

Isn't there an old gardeners saying that a watched bud won't open?
LOL
I know what you mean. It seems like it takes forever for some things to open and others just sneak up on you.
Thought my naked lady lilies were shooting up when I looked in my rear view mirrof on my way to work one morning. I was excited about getting home and seeing that lily, but came home to find it was the purple cone flower blooming aand NOT the naked lady.
Just goes to show you that my hind sight isn't 20-20!
Seems like wisteria and brugmansia take forever to go from bud to flower stage. But once they start they come on like gangbusters.
Be patient, Plaidthub. The lilies will bloom soon. Promise!

I have soaker hoses all around the perimeter of the house, and use them to water the foundation and the shrub beds simultaneously. I leave them in year-round, and haven't had to replace one yet. (They've been out 5 or 6 years.)

My cannas, shastas, echinaceas, hollyhocks, roses, veronica, salvia, datura and daylilies are still blooming, as are the many annuals that accompany them. I have one stubborn Texas bluebonnet that is still blooming way down by the mailbox where it never gets any water except rainfall, but most of the bluebonnets were done back in May.
The perennial vines are still blooming (orange-flowered trumpet creeper, yellow-flowered trumpet creeper, American cross vine and coral honeycuckle). My white, yellow and red water lilies are blooming. The tansy and feverfew have just begun to open up their buds. I have a few gladiolas still in bloom too.

Isn't it funny how we can all grow the same thing, but they bloom at different times, or the growth rate varies. My daturas are only up about 6". My daylilies, and I'm not THAT far south of Tulsa, are already spent. However, mine are the old fashioned variety, that (I almost hate to spit it out), I need to divide in the fall. What gets weeded out goes in the trash, unless someone else wants to pick up a few.

I have one canna - the green and white very finely striped, yellow flowering, can't think what it is called. But, it makes a nice specimen in front of the clematis and next to the purple Salvia 'May Night'. Okie Dawn, I have the fernleaf tansy, and I think I'm going to take it all out next year. It really is invasive and tries to take over everything else. Right now, it is overshadowing my campanula 'Beautiful Trust', and so to avoid this problem in the future, I may keep some in a pot, but that's it.

Is anyone else's passion flower up yet? Mine is just peeking up thru the ground about 2". Once it gets started, though, it'll be Katie bar the door.

The hollyhocks are just about done (nigra), and the other one with the virus (I'll be saving NO seed from that). Anyone wants some nigra seeds, you're welcome to stop by the house and just pick them off.

I have, count 'em, 5 new shoots coming up of the upright elephant ear. I really like this plant. The leaves are gigantic and they always look so nice. The hitchhiker is putting up another HUGE leaf. The taro is about to go into the bog garden in the back. Plus the wentii is doing just fine.

Not doing too well, is the aktinidia kolomitka. Last year it grew about 6-8', and this year, it is only about 2' tall. I did some research on it, and was told not to cut off last year's stem, but the leaves only grew up to the 2' mark, and nothing happened for a couple of months. I finally cut off the stem at the 2' level, and it is trying very hard to put out new foliage again.

Ordered another epimedium - why didn't I know about this plant? It loves dry shade (once established) - which is what most of us in Oklahoma have. And the beautiful leaf colors are to die for....

The bleeding heart roots I planted never did come up. I'm glad I decided to buy the 2 gal. pot at Walmart because it is doing great - no bloom this year, but didn't expect any.

My poor little syneilensis bit the dust, as did rodgersia and astilboides - give me an E for effort, please? Maybe they just went dormant for the year, huh?

Here's to summer!

Susan

The rank beginner that I am, I had to google some of your named plants, Susan, but I found some interesting things, for sure. Here is something someone wrote about syneilesis:

Syneilesis aconitifolia (Shredded Umbrella Plant)
Light Shade to ShadeZone: 5-8 15" tall Origin: Japan, Korea
(aka: Senecio aconitifolius) Don't bother to look this one up...it's that new to cultivation. I flipped several years ago, when I first saw this plant at the US National Arboretum. This woodland Asteraceae (ligularia relative), native to dry hillsides, has become one of the most coveted plants in our garden. In early spring, the white wooly leaves push through the ground like may apples...or more appropriately, like shredded umbrellas after a hurricane. The exquisite foliage flattens out atop 15" stems by mid-spring. Expect a decent-sized colony as the rhizomes slowly spread (2' wide in 5-7 years). Flowers...forget the insignificant flowers and enjoy the luscious foliage!

Here's a comment related to
Astilboides tabularis
(syn. Rodgersia tabularis)(which looks fantastic)

Highly valued for its fabulously bold, tropicalesque foliage, this native of China & Japan forms big clumps, 3Â to 4Â tall & across. The beautiful leaves, like large, rounded, shallowly lobed fans, are light green & softly hairy. Bloom time is from May to July, when the strong, dark, upright stems display plume-like spikes of numerous, tiny, creamy white, star-shaped flowers. Astilboides tabularis likes part shade to bright shade, rich, composty soil & cool, moist conditions. A good choice for growing next to a pond or moist corner. Takes several years to get a good-sized clump.
A.M. Sun/Brt. Shade Moist soil
Perennial

USDA zones 3-10
It looks as though you might need to be patient with these. Give her and E. :-)

b.

Susan, where are you getting your Epimediums? I've told people about these plants for years and their reputed adaptability to dry shade, but never had a place to try them out myself. Ever expanding roots from a Crape Myrtle and a Juniper may give me the "opportunity" to try them. Wonder how they would do with a little more water? What is your experience with them?

This is my first attempt. I have E. wushanense hybrids from Heronswood. They carry quite a few. I planted it in the spring, and it's doing fine so far as I can tell. I do water it frequently right now, as we do all plants until they are established. Then will be the test for dry shade. I love the foliage - it is supposed to be a copper/green mottled. Right now, it is just a kind of grass green. I'm sure the mottling shows up as the plant matures. Will keep you posted.

I just ordered the Giant Thai colocasia from PD; they had a limited number of 50 bulbs. Also, C. 'Ruffles'. The Thai can get about 8' tall, with 5' leaves on it. I'm so excited. Also ordered some aristolocheas for the pipevine swallowtails (host plant), and a new Passiflora caerulea 'Incense', to plant in the back yard for the frits.

Susan

Susan

Susan--how far south of Tulsa? I'd hate to have usable daylillies go to waste when I've still got holes to fill in the front bed. Need help digging and whacking? I've got I think 8 different daylillies and none of them have bloomed at the same time (except for 2 stella d'oros or whatever they are--boring yellow...). It makes for an interesting garden when it changes every 3 or 4 days.

Tiger lillies finally started blooming yesterday. Of course it's the one laying on the ground, so it can' be seen, but I know it's there. The others a looking orangeier (if it's not a word, it oughta be...) every day.

Canna lillies in the back yard all bloomed this year which is a first. They sure don't last long--sorta disappointing.

Hardy glads that hadn't bloomed in two years are blooming. Don't know why. When they didn't do anything last year, I figured they were goners. Came back this year and bloomed nicer than they ever have. Kinda makes me wish there were more than three...all different colors...don't know what happened that they survived and the rest tanked.

I suppose I should go through that bed and dig up all the bulbs that are lurking in there, but that sounds sorta like work...

My eldest said that the baby bunnies have left the nest, so I can start ripping up the monkey grass now.

Crepe myrtles are starting to show color.

Hurrah!
Today is my last day of work for over a week!
Don't know what all I will do, since I'm not leaving town, but you can be sure I'll be out in the yard quite a lot!
Whooppee!

PlaidThumb - I live in Oklahoma City. I had a lady from our forums come yesterday to dig up most of my liriope (Monkey Grass). Doubt you want to drive this far, huh? I think we are having a fall forum get together, and I plan to bring some to that. Of course, if you really, really want to drive this far, I'll be happy to let you have what you want. In fact, you could have them all as far as I'm concerned. They're not my favorite, and I'd love to put something else there. It will, I warn you, be a very tough dig to get them out. Last time I thinned them out, it was about a half day job, with a butcher knife, and lots of sweat labor! You say you lived in Kansas for awhile and was surrounded by brown? You must have been in western Kansas, right? I hale from Southeast Kansas which is much nicer.

Re: your cannas. They should keep on putting up blooms, are they not? Mmmmmm - anyone have any ideas? I have one canna - a gorgeous very finely striped green and white, with a red bud that opens to a buttery yellow. It's yummy looking!

RE: glads. I have some that do that, too. I think they go thru a period of rejuvenation and lie dormant some years. Then, following their rest, they come back more gorgeous and bountiful than ever. My hardy glads are resting this year, but I'm sure they'll revisit the garden next year. Actually, all of the glads, tender or hardy, have proven to be hardy for me. In fact, they are almost invasive in my front yard. I planted the green one and a dark ruby one. The dark ruby one grew up to be what it was advertised on the package, but the green one turned out to be yellow. That's okay, both colors compliment each other.

Baby bunnies, you had baby bunnies? Oh, how cute - were they cottontails? We raised an orphaned baby jack rabbit one time that we found. By the time it was grown enough to be released, we had a HECK of a time catching it. Those things are FAST and ELUSIVE!

Susan

Plaidthumb,

After the canna lillies bloomed, did you cut back the stalk that had had the blooms on it? Sometimes they won't rebloom unless you do that. Most of mine, though, will send up multiple stalks of blooms. They don't bloom non-stop all summer, but they do go in and out of bloom periodically. The ones that get partial shade don't rebloom as much as the ones in full sun though. As long as they are getting some water they ought to be reblooming.

Sometimes by late July or early August mine look kind of ratty, especially if grasshoppers and leafrollers have been tearing up the leaves. At that point I will either cut them down with pruning shears or the Ryobi weedeater that has a steel cutting blade. I cut them off an inch or so above the ground and give them a good long soak with the soaker hose. They regrow like crazy and put on blooms in a fairly fast period of time.

Hope your cannas perform better for you than what they have so far!!!

Dawn

You say yours don't bloom as well in partial shade? I had tons on the east side of my house when I first moved in 7 years ago. Yellow and red. Dull and boring to me. Anyway, there is only about a 10' gap between my neighbors house and mine and with all the trees, they only got a couple hours of full sun a day. They bloomed constantly. I was always walking down the rows and removing the spent blooms, and they just kept on blooming. Maybe it was the particular hybrid (I don't know much about the plain green foliage cultivars), but they didn't seem to mind the shade at all. I love the variegated leaf cannas. Tried to grow some rhizomes of Stuttgart last year, but they never came up. 'Bengal Tiger' planted last year and doing fine.

Susan

Susan--I was in McPherson KS and in Wichita. They are greener than western KS, right on the edge of the green--the further west you go, the browner, drabber, and flatter it gets. If they have two trees within site of each other they call it a "park"...

Married a McPherson girl, so I can't say too much bad about the place. It's actually a nice little town, surrounded by wheat. Lot's of good food to be had--especially if you could get hooked up with the Mennonites. Real old-fashioned stick-to-your-ribs country cookin'.

I just couldn't handle (and still don't like) the brown winters. Winter means snow to me--something to cover the blah of dormancy. Ice skating, snowmen, shoveling, red cheeks and runny noses, the works. I haven't figured out the lure of Florida for the "snow birds".

Had another glad bloom that is the exact shade of the tiger lillies--really makes you do a double take.

Dawn, I've never done anything to the cannas. I'll try removing the bloom stalks this year and see what happens. Do I understand you to say you can chop 'em down and they'll grow back and bloom again this season? Seems strange, but I'll take your word for it.

Susan, in that bed by the porch, I have glads, daffodils, hyacinths, grape hyacinths, and some other little grassy looking thing. If I were to dig all those bulbs up, could I stick them in a lasagna-style pile and expect them to come up next year? I need to do some work on the porch and will have to be doing some digging anyway, so I thought I could just throw everything together in one area and have a surprise bed in the spring...

Yeah, we had baby bunnies. Don't know if they qualify for cute or not, but they looked a lot better than the last nest of baby bunnies I found...right after I, well, I didn't know they were there, and I was mowing grass...I quit mowing quite so far under trees I couldn't really see under after that. We've had more rabbits this year than I have ever seen in our yard. They don't seem to be very wary of us, though--unless I have a camera, then they hop off as soon as they see me.

Has anyone had any luck with something called Palace Purple? I've tried three or four times in different areas of the front bed, and can't get it to much.

And ajuga does hold its own against bermuda weed. It's pretty slow going, but it's expanding every year.

Well, Otis, I don't know that anything does well versus bermuda grass. I just have to dig wide and dig deep and then put a barrier down so it won't sneak in again. Not that I go to all that trouble. I just fight the strays that get into the beds, and after a good rain, it's a tiny bit easier to manhandle. 'Palace Purple' is a heuchera. I killed it 3 times. I have some newer cultivars that are doing better, i.e. 'Starry Night', and 'Raspberry something-or-other". I just about gave up on growing them.

What do you mean by "lasagne style" - just a big hole and throw everything in? The problem is that narsissi (daffodils), hyacinths, grape hyacinths, glads, etc. all have different planting depths. You might want to check that out in a bulb catalog. You could layer them; put the deepest bulbs in first; cover them with soil up to the next layer, and place the next bulbs; and so on.

They called two trees a park? And all this time I thought they called those two trees hangin' trees. LOL

You know, I love the snow, but not in Oklahoma. The roads are terrible, and they don't take care of them like they did when I lived in Boston. Out there, you never had to worry about traversing the roads.

I lived in Wichita for about 2 years, but home is Southeast Kansas (Independence, Neodesha, Cherryvale); lots of green and rivers, trees, etc.

Susan

Otis,

I know it sounds drastic to just cut the cannas back almost to the ground, but it works! I never would have just up and tried this one on my own, but I had a neighbor in Fort Worth who had a 30-year-old bed of cannas and they cut them back like that every summer. The first year I saw them do it, I thought they had cut them back to kill them because they didn't want them any more! I was amazed at how quickly they grew back and re-bloomed.

Susan--My cannas that don't rebloom as well, and also don't bloom as heavily, are in heavy, heavy shade and never get any direct sun, so that may be why they don't bloom as much.

Dawn

I do think you have to beat them with a stick to kill them. Altho, mine were pretty easy to dig up. I just watered the bed heavily, and got down on my hands and knees and panned for rhizomes until I got each and every single one. I gave them away to friends who wanted them. Now, my preference is for the variegated foliage cannas, of which I only have one so far.

Before I dug them up, though, I used to cut them down like you said, and they always came back with nicer looking leaves. Of course, my daylilies are the same way. After blooming, I cut them way down to the ground and the foliage grows back and looks much nicer until frost.

Susan

Susan and Dawn, you two keep tossing things out just to keep me interested, don't you? I'll try cutting the cannas back and see what happens. They can't do any worse.

Now you casually mention that you cut the daylillies back too? It seems like a lot of work (which I am firmly against...), but if it makes them look better I may give it a shot. How does it affect next year's blooming? So far, I've not had more than two of the dl in bloom at the same time. Keeps it interesting that way, I guess.

Any thing else you two wanan throw out to keep things interesting?

Cutting back the daylilies has no affect on next summer's bloom at all. It just gets rid of the raggedy foliage (following bloom) and new foliage will resprout which you can allow to continue feeding the bulbs/roots for next year. I just leave it up, brown and all, after cutting it back, until spring and then I cut it back again.

Otis, do you have any other questions, so we can tell you which other plants we mistreat? LOL

Susan

Sure--how come my sweet corn is loaded with ants? Picked 8 ears, only two had worms, which is a major improvement over last year. The ears haven't filled out like they should, though, and some stalks are ear-less. The stalks on the outer rows did much better than the ones in the middle rows. Too close together maybe? Kernels nice and juicy. I noticed I had ants all over the ears, and when I pulled the ears off, where they joined the stalks was just covered with little black ants. Does this have any meaning I should be aware of, or is this normal and I just never noticed it before.

You wimmen are having a bad effect on me--I'm starting to notice garden-type things I never paid attention to before, which means more questions, which means more answers which cause more questions--where will it all end??? All I wanted was a few ears of corn, and flowers I didn't have to mess with, and then the strawberry plants looked lonely at the plant place last year, then I wondered if I could successfully grow watermelon, and how about canteloupe while I'm at it maybe that lasagna bed thingie will work on top of my concreteclay and maybe some irises between the peony bushes while I'm back here would be nice and something smaller in front of the crepe myrtle so it doesn't look so bare and I probly oughta transplant the spirea bushes and maybe some groundcover might grow here and are there miniature hostas or are mine just lazy and I never got my popcorn planted this year and it's all your fault!! Shame on you! Ya think it's too late if I pull up the ear-less sweet corn real quick like and plant the popcorn?

LOL Plaidthumb! Yeah, go for the popcorn!! And let us know how it turns out.

Now your GETTIN' it! Plants are VERY addictive, but I guess it's better than some other things...

Glad you've joined us.

Speaking of corn....Veggie growing is not my thing. I usually take a short snooze when the subject comes up. If it's not "eye candy" I'm just not interested. But I had to say something about corn. We used to grow our own for years. We tried all different varieties, but Parks Butterfruit was the absolute best that ever hit tongue and teeth. Scrounging around in the deep freeze a month ago we came across some cobs we had frozen 5 years ago. They were just as sweet as the day we froze them. So now we are out of corn and decided to try some corn from the farmers market in Bixby. What a major disappointment. Not sweet at all. I said it tasted like field corn for animals. Maybe this is one thing you have to grow for yourself (like Tomatoes). Trouble is if we grow it again, it will shade out a rose I have. Decisions, decisions. Sorry for going off subject.

Otis, you're LOL! Sorry, I don't know a darn thing about veggie gardening, except that I can't grow them here. I have too much shade. Also, I guess I'm like Maryl, if it's not pleasing to my eye or a butterfly's eye, I have a hard time getting to the plate! Love to eat them, but....

BTW, there ARE miniature or very small hostas. Do you know the names of the ones you have?

Susan

What the hey?? I had a follow up started, and my computer burped--now it's gone...??? maybe it's bouncing around somewhere in space like the radio signals to the extraterrestrials...Guess I'll start over. Too bad I dont' remember what I was writing...

This gardening thing has gotten so out of control I still have nascar races on the dvr I haven't watched yet. Not like me at all...

Maryl, I don't remember Parks Butterfruit as a name of corn I've come across in the seed catalogues. I'll look for some. Right now I'm picking Merit, and have something else should be ready in a few days. can't remember what it is, but it's in my journal, so there. Can't beleive I'm attempting to keep a journal about gardening...Do you have to blanch the ears before freezing? And by the way, there's no decision to make between a rose and sweet corn--ever eaten a rose? Ever have a corn stalk rip the hide from your bones as you walked buy it? Didn't think so..

We have a new asiatic lilly or orchid started blooming this morning. Wish I had more of them, but they were $$$ and I only bought 1 to see if it would grow. It did, and now I can't find them when I look for them. Or they're still too expensive. It's bloomed every year, just hasnt' done anything else. I thought it would send up more shoots or whatever, but no go.

Susan, a couple of the little hostas look like my "patriot", but they must be patriots of L. Frank Baum's, they're too little to be patriots around here...The darn things won't die so I can get rid of them, but they won't grow either. Sorta like Ellen Degeneres--never gets any funnier, but keeps popping up on the tube...

Wonder...would a weed eater work for cutting back the cannas and day lilies? Beats bending over if I don't have to. I can throw what I chop off onto the compost pile, can't I?

I never considered flower beds as gardening until I started reading these forums. I guess I'll give it to you...

Hi plaidthumb. Partner uses the weed eater to cut back a lot of our spent growth including echinacea. It regrows from the roots. We usually just leave the day lily foliage but sometimes try to pull off the stems. I have been deadheading those shastas. We also try to cut off the tiger lilies when they are finished and surprise lilies come up in the same area for later summer bloom.The salvias we have mixed in the bed continue blooming and look good with all the other plants. We put in more blue salvias and Mexican bush sage this summer for more late summer interest and for the hummers and butterflies. The echinacea self sows too. In the past it has come up just from piling around the cut off seed stems but we have more than enough of it now. Last fall I made welded wire cages over layers of newspaper around a stump and piled the dead headed and pulled up zinnias and red salvia into the cage for disposal to compost. Now, there is a bed of blooming zinnias and salvia and I haven't done another thing to it. We are getting to the point that we don't need to start anything new, but I do love the asiatic lilies. This year, the only one we have doubled in size. It is bright yellow. I would love to mix more white into our beds to enhance all the brilliant colors. I have mixed in white and purple zinnias to compliment the other colors. Deadheading also sometimes promotes a longer or a second bloom period with the perennial plants. Keeping up the with deadheading and weeding will be our priority for the rest of the summer. EP

Parks Butterfruit corn is in Parks seed catalog under Yellow Super Sweet Hybrids. We tried other varieties of supersweet, but this was the best in our opinion. Merit is a reliable commercial variety. My DH knows better then to give me a dozen ears of corn for my Birthday. It certainly would be cheaper for him then roses though.
Small Hostas? I am not a big Hosta fan. I certainly wish Plant Delights would not waste as much space as they do for minor variations of green/white/yellow. But I did see the "cutest" Hosta in the world at Binding Stevens (gone but not forgotten). Called Pandoras Box, it was tiny and if it had been reasonably priced, I would have scooped it up. But there are people who will pay an unreasonable price, so they were never discounted in all the years that B.S. carried them (like $50.00 for a 4 " pot). Plant Delights had it too, but again, too much $$.

There are better places to buy Hostas that are cheaper than PD. But, I usually buy mine locally. I just HAD to have H. Titanic this year, and paid a pretty penny for it. But, it was still less than the price for PD's hosta. You'll find great internet sites if you look on the Hosta forum here.

Now, for you, Otis, my man! I think it would be okay to cut back the daylily foliage with your weedeater. And, I don't think L. Frank Baum ever had a thing to do with hostas. LOL. Are you growing them in shade? What kind of soil? None of the hostas are looking really good right now as we head into the heat. I have 'Sum and Substance' (really big--about 6' feet wide and 3' tall); 'Blue Angel' (bout the same size); Gold Standard, Night Before Christmas, Francis Williams, Remember Me, Honey Bells (fragrant blooms), lancifolia, Titanic, Sun Power, albo-marginata, and a few others I don't recall. My collection is not that big.

I have a few asiatics, 'Oklahoma City' (orange with lighter orange center), a real big neon orange one, muscadet, and a mixed bag of whites and pinks). I really love the orientals (bloom later than asiatics), and have several of these. Also have L. formosanum, which blooms big white trumpets in the fall.

Otis, you're gonna love gardening - that's your mantra for the remaining summer days. You plant the asiatics, orientals, orienpets, and other lilies in the fall. The big box stores will carry them pretty cheap, like Home Depot, where you can get several in a bag for $3-5. I really popular asiatic that is pretty is "Lollipop". Its pink and white. I'm sure they will stock that one.

Maryl, as you can see, I really like the BIG hostas. I have so much yard to cover. Most of mine, I bought at Warren's before they became O'Higgins. You can get pretty decent hostas at decent prices at Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and Lowe's.

Oh, by the way, Otis, I love Ellen Degeneres. I think she's hysterical!

Susan

Otis,

I hate to tell you this if you haven't already figured it out, but you are addicted to gardening!!!! Go ahead and admit it and you will feel so much better.

The ants are on the corn because they are hungry! Here's a few possibilities: 1)Are they fire ants? Fire ants love to munch on corn plants. There aren't many organic fire ant treatments to get them out of the garden (a few of the organic fire ant treatments are Gardenville's Auntie Fuego, Citrex, and Spinosad). 2)If your corn has leaf-type aphids on it, the ants may be gathering the honeydew excreted by the aphids. 3) Also, there's a kind of cornfield ant that herds/transports the type of aphids that attack corn roots, but I think they usually stay on the ground in the root area.

I usually ignore the ants when they are on the corn. They don't usually do any real harm to it.

If the corn ears didn't pollinate well, it could mean the corn was planted a little too closely together OR there wasn't enough wind movement to spread the pollen around OR the weather was very hot, which can affect the viability of the pollen. My early corn, which was ready to pick in May, pollinated really well. My mid-season corn, which was ready to pick in mid-June pollinated so-so, some ears were full and others weren't. My late-season corn, due to be ready for picking soon may not do well as it has tasseled in really hot weather and the pollen is probably sterile---my fault for planting it too late!

By the way, I always blanch my corn for 2 to 4 minutes before freezing it. It is supposed to halt the ripening process and preserve the quality. I've never tried freezing corn without blanching it, so I don't know if it is just as good unblanched.

Dawn

Well, Susan--there's no accounting for taste, I suppose. What do I know, though--I still think Don Rickles is hilarious, "Airplane!" is a great movie, and Glenn Miller's music is still the best music ever made...

Is the blue angel hosta a real funky shade of blue? There was one in the next neighborhood over which the owner was going to let me have a division of if I helped him dig it up. Unfortunately, he passed away unexpectedly about that time, and I didn't have the heart to go ask his widow about it. She moved out and the new owner delandscaped the place before I realized it...

The hostas are under/between a couple of good-size river birch trees, about 20 feet apart. I've got the trees trimmed fairly high, so the south edge of the bed gets quite a bit of sun, the rest is dappled shade. The "soil" started out as heavy clay, I've thrown in peat,potting soil, top soil, compost or any combination thereof whenever I've planted something, and about 4 years of mulch and leaves have never been cleaned up, so it's improved a bit.

Maryl, thanks for the info on Parks. I'm not familiar with them, so I'll check them out. How did you find anything at Binding Stevens that was "reasonably priced"?

Oh dear Otis, you are in for a treat with Parks Seed Catalog. It will drive the winter blues away and make a dent in your pocketbook all at the same time. Excellent quality of seed, packaged in a foil pouch that is moisture resistant. Unopened seed can last for years. Best of all their beautifully illustrated catalog is FREE!..........BTW, I find Don Rickles humor just plain rude, but Airplane hysterical, and the sound of a Mockingbird on a crisp spring morning is all the music I need........Back on topic though. I noticed that my almost forgotten Tigridia is blooming. Like Gladiolas, it's not supposed to be hardy, but mine sure is. Nice large flowers that evaporate before the sun sets in the evening. I planted a mix, but the color that survived is a medium yellow. Very striking........Susan, I'm tempted by L. Formosanum but figure it requires the same moist but well drained soil that all lilies like. Maybe it's tougher? How tall does it get for you?

I love big band! Also love jazz (Winton Marsalis, Michael Franks (Popsicle Toes)), classical, classic rock, opera (saw Pavarotti in OKC), ANYTHING but Country/Western!! Yeah, I'm a CW snob! I met Leslie Neilson at an art function several years ago. Very nice man (for the few minutes we spoke).

My formosanum is still a baby. It is about 3' tall, with 4 stems that will bloom this year. My neighbor, Ralph's, are about 5-6' tall, and he has tons of stems that will bloom. They are very fragrant. Lilies don't really like moist soil (their bulbs will rot). I plant my with a mix of my clay soil, commercial garden soil, peat moss, and steer manure (small amount), and I fertilize at the time I plant (ususally fall), with a high phosphorus fertilizer. This also helps them grow roots. Formosanum will eventually get about 8' tall.

Another plant, if anyone has shade, that I think should be an Oklahoma proven winner, is the new Thalictrum 'Illuminator'. It has dusky blue lacy-like foliage, flowers yellow poms in spring, but doesn't die back in the heat as my other Thalictrum aquilegifolium. Seems like the heat doesn't bother Illuminator.

I sign up for every free catalog I can find. If nothing else, I get ideas from them.

Susan

Hmmm, maybe there's room for all of us, I suppose...but NO country/western??? How could you? Johnny Cash is right behind Glenn Miller...I'll get over it, I guess. It's so odd seeing Leslie Nielson in some of his earlier movies, because he's always so serious--I keep waiting for the laugh, but it isn't there...

I've ordered the Parks catalogue. I'll have to rethink things a little bit if I plant any of the supersweet stuff. I don't have a lot of area, and my idea/planning stage always outperforms my doing stage. I'll have to figure out how to stagger the timing on the pollination.

"Next year's garden" (is this going to be a yearly thing now?) will be expanded, with peppers, beans, melons, maybe some cukes, sweet corn and popcorn, pumpkins, maybe potatoes and peanuts just for fun, if I can make it all fit. We still need more perennials to fill in holes in the front bed. If I can figure out how to post a picture, I'll throw one up here.

Had another glad bloom yesterday. Most of them are laying on the ground, trying to find the sun (planted to close to the eaves), but they're blooming. I'll have to figure out what to do with them for next year. If they're going to attempt to bloom, I guess I oughta try to put them someplace they'll like a little better. I'm obviously spending too much time around here.

ONly other new bloom is attached to 4 paws. Our eldest brought home an abandoned puppy today. We need another animal like we need another kid...Anybody want a puppy????