Stunning photo Jeanner! Mystery solved. I planted verbascum last year and this spring it was gone, and it was in a good garden bed. Talk about a short lived perennial. In this case also known as an annual. LOL 'Jackie' is really pretty. Good luck with it Brenda, maybe it will like Cali better! Campanula grows well for me, the peach-leafed type the best. No luck with the shorter 'blue clips' types. Delphiniums last two seasons in my zone 7, with decline in the second season. Just too hot for them, but boy do I love them. Raptures. Foxgloves are great too and will grow well via re-seeding provided they like their location. Surprising my Lobelia cardinalis is coming back gang-busters this spring. Lobelia is another plant that has to love it's location or it goes poof. It's growing on the back side of my pond in damp clay, partial morning/mid day sun. Full shade from afternoon sun. Next to several varieties of Joe Pye Weed (eupatorium). Also, great blue lobelia. QUESTIONS for the plant people. My Lousiana iris plant (Black Gamecock) is huge, but has never bloomed. All my other iris (Siberian, species, yellow flag, Japanese) bloom with no problems. Could it want a lower Ph? My soil is clay and tends to be 8.5 and the city water here is also 8.5. Rain is about 5.5 to 6.0 It started as one small fan and is now 3 feet tall and just as wide with many fans. It's lush looking. It is on the damp left side of the pond near my other pond marginals that do bloom (those listed above). I fertilize once per year in early spring with general purpose Miracle Grow, but maybe I should try Miracid or something else? I have an Endless Summer hydrangea nearby that blooms pink (as proof of the higher Ph). I need ideas - thanks. -Susan

Wow, thank you for all your suggestions. I'm thinking it must be a box or privet honeysuckle. My plan is to cut it down to about a foot (as someone indicated above). Over the years, as it grew, the owners just trimmed the side of the shrub so that it wouldn't block the path on the side of the house. So it just grew higher and higher and now has started leaning over the path. So now it's just an annoyance and gets beat up on by anyone walking down the path. Knowing what it is I can now get it healthy and healthy-looking again. Thank you again! Your efforts are much appreciated. flora uk: there are some red leaves on top that have fallen from a nearby japanese maple, but it's all just the honeysuckle in the photo.

Sam, Clement, Resin and bboy, thank you very much for your answers. All three P. menziesii should be of almost exactly the same age. Is it a possibility that genetic variances between them caused one's bark to mature faster? It is quite likely that the third one is P. pinaster since that tree used to be planted on small scale for forestry around where I live. Thank you for the compliment, Sam. :) Taxus baccata is a conifer which is wild growing here anywhere; presumably because of its extensive use for hedges. Close to the one I found were numerous "normal" (single coloured, dark green ones) so this one catched my eye immediately. This one has smaller, more sickle shaped leaves which are green on the inside and bright-yellow across their edges. This post was edited by liopleurodon on Fri, May 17, 13 at 5:23

The bottom one is Echeveria diffractens:). Really pretty plant:). The ones I see around here are more plum, but I do see them online looking like yours:).