Summer may not be over in your neck of the woods but it is definitely over here.All I can do is dream and wait for next spring

Lovely plants and color--lucky you

Summer is not over here in central Oklahoma and it won't let go. We have been dry for weeks still hovering daily in the upper 80's to mid 90's. Usually around mid September we get some rain and a break followed by what we think of as annual Indian Summer but this is the year of the endless, relentless summer, I wouldn't call this Indian Summer. My fall flowers are not what they should be, it still looks and acts like August. Usually I am well past fall seed sowing getting a head start on hardy annuals that will winter over, transplanting and planting new plants because around here fall is a better time for planting than spring. I wait and I wait and I wait....... For now I'm keeping most new plants in pots in the shade no less because its easier to monitor, they dry out quick. I can't seem to keep the ground moist no matter what I do.

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain finally. We need a significant amount to make a difference because the soil is dry down so deep that manual watering disappears by tomorrow. Those begonias are pretty but would be a PITA to keep looking fresh right now.

i wasnt aware the de-nile ran near your house.. lol ..

ken

I am thinking of it as The Big Rip-off, it'll be just par for the course for it to switch gears and go from summer to winter and forget about fall altogether. Last year it did that and we got no leaf color (wah). This year they are falling off the dried up trees green. I cry foul.

Weather here has been a bit odd. Monday morning (2 days ago) it was 26 degrees when I went to work. Yesterday it was 46 degrees at the same time in the morning, and got into the upper 60's, which I thought was pretty darn nice. Then today it was glorious - it really felt like a cool summer day, not mid-October. And supposedly more of the same tomorrow. (low 70's) I'm enjoying it while it lasts - well, as much as I can enjoy it while being stuck inside all day.

dave--- I meant those geraniums are pretty (not begonias). I do the same thing all the time with rudbeckia's and gaillardia's. Is there such a thing as plant dyslexia?

Spectacular, babs! Thank you!

Wow Babs! Love that! We're having beautiful foliage here too this year, but nothing as spectacular as that. Thanks for sharing the scene.

TR - I am crying foul too. Last year and again this year fall color has been sadly lacking. Normally we would be ablaze but due to poor rain patterns the leaves mostly shriveled and fell. So tough going into winter without that last hurrah!

To make matters worse we had a late frost at the end of May that affected some plants.

OK I am done. I should go and eat some cheese to go with my whine!

peren.all-- it could be worse, it could be like that terrible flood in South Carolina. Rain patterns are weird all around. We are predicted to have an abnormally wet winter with what they are calling a monster el nino event. Is Canada part of that prediction? BTW, I watched the movie 'Days of Heaven' last week, I hadn't seen it in years. Its such a gorgeous movie so I looked it up & learned it was shot in Alberta Canada. Stunning landscape. I was wondering if anyone posts here from Alberta?

Of course, folks from Alberta post here :)

I believe our last super El Nino of '97/'98 had drenched the Canadian west coast and gave Alberta one of the shortest warmest winters and earliest springs on record ... I loved it, though many of the evergreens had taken a hard hit due to desiccation.

As of today, we've had some light frosts and most things are looking a bit ratted up, though severe killing frost has not yet occurred and we've enjoyed very pleasant conditions .... but, that's sooon to change!

As of today some rudbeckias that remain looking very summery.

This asarina has scrabbled 12 ft up the side of my house and looks as it did in August ... no, it's even nicer now as it has more flowers. I love this vigorous frost hardy vine!

Hey twroze from Alberta, its hard to miss the similarity in landscape, big sky and miles of flat land extending to the horizon. Do you know if they left that movie set built house or not? Its a great looking house.

Below is the house they built for the movie. I love seeing these houses sitting in the middle of nowhere.

TR, I've only once travelled to the southern regions of my province, the treeless stark flatness sure had me appreciate living a bit further north in the forested rolling hills of Alberta's Boreal Forest.

Nice houses, especially the last one, looks like my style of fixer upper, if only I had carpentry skills that is, lol. As for the movie, you're truly speaking with the worlds worst movie buff!

Wow, Days of Heaven - a blast from the past! I was a media student in college (which meant I spent an awful lot of class time watching movies, lol. Old, new, B&W, silents, pretty much every genre existing) and I remember this. Cinematographers Almendros and I think Wexler, who were well-respected... gorgeous to watch but if I recall the story wasn't so great. But kind of a cult classic I think because it was so beautiful. I'll have to see if I can find this and watch it again after all these years!

Yes TR there are always parts of the world that are worse off. It makes our gripes seem petty indeed.

The last time there was a strong El Nino that affected Canada was in 1998. We were in the worst hit area and could not get out the long lane way of our rural home even if we had wanted to. It looked like a bizarre game of Pick-up-Sticks made of trees. Luckily we choose to heat with wood and that allowed us to stay home unlike thousands of others. We were without power for 13 days (the power grid was nearly wiped out) Here are images of the event. Ice Storm

Hopefully this even larger system only brings us warmer temps.

diggerdee, its better watching it at home on Demand where you can stop it and take a break for movie content, it was downright grueling to sit through in the theatre I remember. Of course, in the theatre its a work of art and its considered one of the most beautiful movies ever made. I loved the soundtrack and thought Carnival of the Animals made it more haunting. Richard Gere looks so young in it, that got me.
Terrence Malick

peren.all, the problem we often have with a warmer and wetter winter is ice. Its too cold to snow so it either freezes on contact and builds up or rain freezes to ice right before it hits the ground from the slightly colder air right above us, it can get pretty scary. Two degrees of temperature can mean the difference between disaster and not so bad. In the last few years, ice storms have become more frequent here.

By the way tworsz, that southern part of Alberta where its flat is my favorite kind of landscape. If I was visiting, that is where I'd want to go because of the starkness and the size of it which overwhelms and boggles the senses. Its hard to explain why its so beautiful to people who don't like that, its all in the eye of the beholder I guess. I suppose comparing it to the ocean would be the closest thing.

I planned to winter over the best of my ivy geraniums and very carefully potted up four in my best ceramic pots. Then I promptly left them outside overnight when we had a freeze. Brought them in the following day and trimmed them all back. Hoping for the best but planning for the worst. I knew it was coming but it snuck up on me anyway.

Fall arrived today! It rained yesterday and it rained pretty good. I finally got my now not so new mail order fall plants in the ground to get established a bit before winter kicks in. What a good feeling. Speaking of good feeling, I've been sicker than a dog for two weeks and I felt half way human today. The flu has hit Oklahoma and I am now convinced I had that and not just a viral thing. Very bad stuff.

Everything I planted is very cold hardy and we don't have the dreaded winter heaves here. As a matter of fact I'd never heard of plants heaving until I started posting here, sounds awful. Guess we get our come-up-ants when we have to drag out the hose and water in winter, sometimes we have to do that. 70 degrees today and just gorgeous, it finally feels like fall + it sure feels good to feel good again.

TV is on and weatherman just said "Its finally fall for sure here in Oklahoma". We are in the 60's all next week with more rain coming.

Tex, don't keep us in suspense! What'd you get? I got some more grass (Karley Rose), Aster 'Kickin' Lavender' and Veronica 'Charlotte'! Then, of course I turned around and put in another order from since the 50% off is good till 10-31...

Sounds like you ordered from SRG too for that great 50% off sale (wow!). I've had 3 orders in all to SRG and one from HCG this fall.

SRG: 1 Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow', 7 Echinacea purpura 'Magnus', 1 Agastache 'Golden Jubilee', 3 'Autumn Fire' Sedums and in all 10 Big Bluestem 'Red October cuz I ordered more. I love this grass, its so stiff and vertical.

HCG: 1 Pawnee Buttes Sand Cherry, 3 'Thin Man' Indian Grass, 1 Zauschneria Hummingbird Trumpet, 1 Eryngium 'Blue Glitter'.

I filled out another to SRG last night which I'm waffling on but will most likely send in tonight unless I've piddled too long already: 3 Panicum 'Ruby Ribbons', 1 Solidago 'Little Lemon and 1 Amsonia hubrichtii and another Agastache 'Golden Jubilee.

Yea, that 50% off is really a temptation.

My kindred spirit! I've recently gotten Sedum 'Red Cauli', more 'Autumn Joy' and 'Matrona'. I ordered 'Ruby Ribbons', 'Rain Dance', 'Prairie Sky' and 'Rostrahlbusch' today! I am in love with the Piet Oudolf/prairie planting style! Go for it! The supplies are dwindling!

I am loving the 'Ascot Rainbow', too. It goes through so many changes, you really get a lot of bang for your buck!

texas ranger-has the record rain hit your area? very dry, very clear, quite warm here in reno.

11/04 is our record for latest first frost-set back in '04. looks like we'll blow past it this year.tomatoes, peppers, basil, all still flourishing-nice.

last years' .79 hd mums putting on a good show this year-no whites made it-hmmm.

You got me curious about the latest frost date on record. From the chart it looked like in 1999 the date was December 8 making that the latest. There were some dates that fell in late October and others in early to mid to late November. We have a pretty long growing season here.

The record rain stayed in Texas, we missed out on all of it, they got it pretty bad in some areas with flooding. Oklahoma did get horrendous flooding in spring though.

Pretty mums.

Feh - prairie planting - so last decade. The 'New Perennial' Movement has not been new for 25 years now (at least) and I confess to being bored, bored, bored with swathes of 4foot tall, late summer grasses and perennials...not to mention Oudolfs, Foerster, Oehme, Kingsbury et al's absolute rigour in selecting from a tiny pallet of plants used in repetition. In fact, I would say it was the whole 'movement' thing (in which I had a thorough immersion for over a decade) which removed me from the design game and backwards into mere plant collecting. Of course, having no meadow/prairie or open sunny spaces anymore tends to force you to move onwards (or go backwards) a bit, anyway.

Like you, Tex, I was responding to a landscape ( the fens) which transcends design tropes - the vast flatness of East Anglia completely demanded movement and texture, unmitigated by hedges, trees, shrubs - almost an ancestral theme of huge skies, wetlands and emptiness...and the perennial movement chimed perfectly with this...and, on a personal level, raising plants from seed always meant I had lots of 20-30 of a more limited selection to plant so of course, it was a perfect fit...but now I have been thrust into woodlands, I am finding it hard to synthesise a design style which agrees with the vernacular of place while satisfying my shallow tendency to get easily bored...but I think the timeline involved with trees (decades and centuries rather than the bright, beloved annuals which stole my heart) will hopefully point the way to an iconic woodland style which has the lightness and freedom of grass planting but with the stature and weight of a forest. And help me with patience.

S'hard though...and I nearly always feel I am floundering.

Moving plants from the open, sunny (and big) allotment, I cannot help feeling rueful and nostalgic because, after 13 years of working it, the plot was coming together nicely and I felt reasonably confident I knew what I was doing...and now, flung back into anxiety again - hence my childish response to prairie stylings - almost a tantrum. Gah!

We can only tell it is autumn here if we notice the nights are longer. It has not rained since May, and I can hardly wait to plant with the first rain, due in early November. Days are still up to the eighties with the nights in the fifties. No worries about frost. Have had tulips in the frig since late August, will be able to plant them in December. Al

gee camps, its not last decade here and that remark sort of stings a bit. Living in the middle of a metroplex (I hate that term) makes for wanting to drag a bit of the native countryside in here as an oasis where its all artificial and conventional with streets, manicured lawns and store bought stuff that could be the popular plants you'd see anywhere and which results in a generic 'nowhere' or 'anywhere'.

I guess I am talking about gardening for a regional look that reflects the surrounding countryside in much the same way as people do in other states like New Mexico or Arizona. It looks like those states out there because they use the plants that grow there in their landscaping. Call it an Oklahoma look if you will or a renewed interest or appreciation in the great plains. I can't help it if people in Europe are importing native prairie plants due to some fad. All I know is I find whats growing on the sides of the road more interesting and workable than whats grown in nurseries and shipped in on trucks and placed on shelves at the local plant gettin' place and the endless need for novelty and something new or exotic.

The weather here is hard on plants so going native is a way of coping more so than a style. I can understand how the idea of importing the look to another place might seem like a passing fad and would seem to be dated in ten years. I have mentioned that it is becoming popular when I encourage anyone to do this kind of low maintenance garden. The good result is people are finally planting low water use plants here where such things matter. The party is over in other words and its time to quit the stupidity.

Looking at some of the photos of what strikes me as ridiculously idealistic gardens posted on this forum makes me understand that what seems to grow and work elsewhere is never going to look like that here so it seems wiser to go with what does and face reality. I can laugh privately at the very idea of trying to reproduce such a look around here, thats not to say they aren't lovely or ridiculous where they are located but doing it here???????? I'd say time to get real and stop dreaming. Those gardens in England, here??? Are you kidding or what?

Where I live and for hundred of miles in any direction has been looked down on for a long time. Its described as empty, a whole lot a nuthin', barren, ugly, flat, uninteresting and people elsewhere think they are too cultured, sophisticated or cool or whatever to even give it a thought as a destination or place to live and oftentimes a snobbery comes across that is hard to miss showing they look down on such. The time has finally come when its being appreciated as a quieter, less flashy type of beauty and a pride of place has developed. I love the way the grasses etc are being used for ornamental plants with a place and value of their own instead of plowing it all down or looking at them as weeds.

About woodlands, as popular as they are I don't envy anyone who is dealing with woodlands or shade gardens. I'm simply not drawn to it at all, never have been, never will be. Give me an open prairie any day. Its got its own style of quiet and more subtle beauty to anyone who will take the time to learn to see from a different perspective of beauty or just get out of their car and look closely.

Camps, I don't see how a garden like this can be considered dated, overdone or ever become tiresome. I bet the monarchs would agree. I really can't see any difference in this and the concept of trying to plant trees in an urban setting for environmental reasons or beauty. I wish Oklahoma City would do one on this scale but they are definitely moving in this direction around government buildings, downtown and medians. Is this really about style or just a faddish movement? I think not, its about something else altogether.
Lurie Gardens, Chicago

closer to home, camp might look at beth chatto's dry garden-a stunner.

texas ranger, your garden is a good one, makes me want to make some changes, though i probably won't.

Get a grip, Tex - it is (you must surely have gathered) my english humour here...and, as a mea culpa, I am never going to be short-changing anyone in the humble apology stakes. Nonetheless, whilst you are responding to a true desire to grow the right plant in the right place, unless you do have acres and acres, the prairie style looks bloody ridic in an English surburban garden...but because it is fashionable, it has also permeated the mainstream and has been (uncritically) adopted as the style du jour (including by myself). and I am getting a bit fed up with grass and eryngiums. None of my gardens ever last longer than a few years - have been through alpines, South African bulbs and corms, annuals and wildflowers, scree gardens, peat beds, fruit training and pruning, shrubs and conifers, single genus fads such as geums and the great rose phase along with passing crazes for literally dozens of plants hardly any of which are still with me (the latest and most long-lasting was umbellifers ...because I have zero attention span and am as shallow as a puddle. And anyway, you are not short of a few choice phrases yourself in defence of this or that plant - it certainly isn't a personal slur.

Nonetheless, the plantation I ended up with was by no means my choice for great gardening but, as ever, a million other reasons, not least being cost, availability and accessibility...as well as byzantine land use laws, dictated the choice of woodland - I was initially appalled, having been a sun-loving flower and (reluctant) veg grower for 20odd years. Calories in (sunlight, energy) calories out (crops)...a few puny attempts at 'forest gardening' did nothing to convince me that there was a future in shade...but here we are and needs must make the best of it.

Eta - I don't believe I ever said your (gorgeous) gardens are dated or overdone..but nor are they a carbon copy of that prairie style beloved of Europeans - you certainly wouldn't be seeing all those xeric plants in euro-style plantings..and nothing is ever really new either - William Robinson got there before Oudolf et al and before him, J.C.Loudun so...what goes around, comes around - I am certainly expecting a revival of those 70s conifer gardens...but with a contemporary twist.

Beth Chatto's gardens - ho yes, am very familiar and what's more, I can take a little smidgeon of pride in introducing Ms.Chatto to althea cannabina.

I have been passing ipomopsis around as well.

Ack Ack, I've got a---- grip ------on this so not to worry. Prairie gardens springing up in England sound more than a bit redick to me, more like stupid or queer, but hey, I've got a long list of what passes as redick and most times I must keep the duct tape handy or tie up the hands here at the computer or else I'm in danger of speaking my mind and saying what I really think which is usually not appreciated.

All I know is if I traveled to Germany I'd want to see Germany and not Oklahoma and the same thing would apply to a visit to Great Britain or any other place over there. I mean, in England I think I'd want to see heathers or something along those lines and not Indian Grass, Prairie Sage or Little Bluestem. As far as what else plant-wise would pass or be labeled as a true native Great Britain garden is beyond me (I draw a blank) but heck, you guys don't even have a monarch (meaning butterflies and not kings) migration over there that I know of so that is something to factor in. We gotta help the little guys, among endless other factors to consider around here and these big prairie reserves and gardens do a good service at keeping at least a remnant going.

I'm not too crazy about the starry eyed people here who wax endlessly over wanting to create an English Cottage Garden. I equate that with a garden full of water sucking plants and endless repetitions of roses out the wazoo.

No such thing as an English Garden - we had a disastrous glaciation just as our landmass separated from the continental plate, leaving us bereft of much diversity in the native flora and fauna but we also had a rapacious colonial empire so cheerfully plundered that third of the world which flew, however briefly, a British flag...hence the immense number of Himalayan plants which our planthunters sourced from the rest of the world (and Africa, North America, Australian and so on and so forth)...but the idea of an iconic english style is faintly ludicrous, not least because we have been hamstrung by class, snobbery and a horrid sense of superiority There is literally no contiguity between an aristocratic stately pile (rhododendrons) or a northern weavers cottage (dianthus or gooseberries)...and yet, as a nation, we have all gardened incessantly, obsessively and frequently, quite pushily.Nevertheless, we are blessed with a mild maritime climate, as well as having a nursery industry which enables us to buy 70,000 different species from around the world...but natives, not so much. Trees, for example - we have less than 2 dozen indigenous species...and there is a lot of confusion between native and naturalised. Whilst water use occupies the gardeners across the US, our guiding principle often rests on PH - the acid uplands of Scotland and Cornwall are a million miles from the alkali flats of fenland, with chalk downs and acid heath at all points in between.

I suspect that, if you visited say Germany or the UK, you would be hard pressed to identify any sort of national style - indeed, the cottage garden look shifts so often into parody as to become an embarrassing cliche, looking quite as silly as a prairie planting in a modern 1960s townhouse (such as mine).

I've long had the impression that imperialism was at work there and that Great Britain was a kind of museum of things and plants collected from all over the world. Conjures up the patriotic song: Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!

I was thinking more about the surrounding landscape than gardens with the comment about visiting. I like seeing diversity in different places and the trend toward a universal, generic look is depressing. Maybe I'm imagining this but that is what it seems like is happening. If the nurseries where people shop everywhere all carry the same popular plants these are what you will see everywhere. It results in the same kind of repeats of McDonald's & Strip Malls which look exactly the same no matter what state you live in or where you visit. Doesn't matter where you live, the plants look the same in people's gardens. I find that boring and rather creepy.

Oklahoma has been one of the worst for having a lack of sense of place, identity and local pride because what grows locally in the prairies has been considered unworthy for use as ornamentals and without value. Case in point. Recently they adopted a hybrid tea rose as our state flower because the lowly wild Gaillardia is not good enough or classy enough. The reason for this decision was the Japanese (mind you) plant breeder who created (!) it named it Oklahoma Rose. It needs winter protection. This really ticked me off. What suckers for flattery we are. Now I ask you, what the heck does that hybrid tea rose say about our state? I picture a room full of well dressed female socialites making these decisions, probably one of them is married to a senator or something. All I know is I didn't get to vote on it.

When I see the large botanical gardens or local small private ones using native plants that are suited and native to the place they are located in I don't think of it as a style or fad or movement. I think of it in completely different terms and lately I've come to take it quite personally. I don't know why because in the past I didn't care much or think of such things at all but once I started seeing what has happened all around us with the disappearing prairie and noting how fast its disappeared and still is, something happened to me that was akin to grief and a strong sense of loss. I reacted to your statement because if people think of it in terms of just another passing gardening fad it becomes trivialized and shallow. Designers such as Piet Oudolf and others are helping to bring attention to and save something in my way of seeing it. That might not be their intent but they are legitimizing the use of what has long been considered weeds or plants of little value.

Quite apart from the potential loss of habitat and diversity, your part of the world witnessed a social and environmental apocalypse still within living memory... and is somewhat akin to what is happening in large parts of the fens right now I can fully relate to your feelings of ire when a reasoned and emotive response is reduced to a frippery of fashion (and glibly dissed by philistines such as myself). Still, I simply cannot manage the intellectual rigour to maintain anything remotely like a gardening manifesto...or not for longer than a couple of seasons at any rate - I am embarrassed by my many short-lived enthusiasms for this or that genus, style, ideology and now I am entering treetime (decades as opposed to months), I might manage a degree of depth and patience.

davez7, I feel we have run amuck going OT here. I apologize. I assume by your GW name you live in Nevada? Do you grow any natives or is there interest there in them by other people? Saving the native landscape and such as that?

camps, sometimes I get bored with certain plants or wonder what I saw in something or why I needed it at the time however, I've read enough of your posts to know I am not involved with the amount of variety you have going on. My budget is much slimmer because I'm not much of a collector on anything either indoors or out. Finding seeds off-chance on a walk or having volunteers coming up for free are my favorite things and I'm easily entertained in the garden without acquiring a lot of new plants each year. Cactus & grasses can really multiply on a person, which is a good thing I think, so I do lots of repeats as a result and don't focus so much on individual species, its more about the over all look.

texas-nv probably has the most limited biome in the u.s. a garden of natives would mostly be weeds and sticks and not many of those.

i love the limits and austerity of the high desert but it's not a look to translate into a home garden.

the basic issue of course is water-reno has had less than 6" precip total in the last 3 yrs.

That is some seriously low rainfall. My taste in plants is not what some people would like or consider ornamental but I can think of several desert plants that I'd consider landscape worthy so I kind'a disagree a little bit about translating them into a home garden but its a matter of personal taste and most people don't like the look. I've seen pictures of some gardens that use desert succulents, unusual shrubs, grasses etc. that make me jealous & which cannot be grown in parts of the country that receives more annual rain. Personally, I like the looks of plants like Saltbush, several wild desert 'weeds' the sages, Sacaton grasses and dozens of interesting desert plants I can't grow here and it seems like an alpine garden could be successful in parts of the state.

Water is getting expensive here, it must be outlandishly high priced to water where you are? Just guessing.