I planted an Iberis gibraltarica last year, which I thought was a perennial candytuft, but it behaved like an annual for me. When I was going to trim it back, the whole plant just snapped off at its base. I'm wondering if it will regrow from its roots. I really enjoyed it when it was in its full flush of bloom, though--much more interesting color than the flat white Iberis sempervirens, I feel.

Ive only been gardening for a few years but every year I think "next year will be better". Especially all these perennials from seed that spend a year or two as rosettes or a clump of leaves. Now is a fine time to sow things and get that leafy phase moving along.

Campanula - so nice to hear from you! Do you still own that forest? Very curious re how that is going. Also, sounds as if you still live in the same place with the small garden? Would love to see pictures of that, or the interesting parts of it. I am also dealing with a garden which needs more care than I have been giving it, but of course there is always some flower somewhere blooming that looks great!

Jackie

Hi Camp, sorry to hear about your health and drought issues. Hope you can qualify for mm, and congrats that they finally went ahead and approved it. It can do wonders! I was wondering, do you get access to more rare and unusual sedums through odering seeds? I will have to decide what stays, what needs to be moved, whatever. First I need to clear a path, and also had to start a second compost pile.

Are you here (on Antiques) by accident? I hope not. I miss your humour, and fire and brimstone.

Also sorry to hear about your health issues. I am hoping that my garden evolves into something near my imaginings before I cark it. As I keep removing full grown plants (disease or wrong spot or just not what I'd hoped for), this may not happen - let alone from lack of skill.

You mention so many plants that I have never even heard of. We are very dry here too (and crazily warm for mid-winter), though in a city with the luxury of tap water, that only means slow growth, unlike the farmers whose animals are starving, and crops failing. Still, I am ordering drought tolerant plants, more and more.

Trish

Hoping the health issues are resolved soon, Camp.

I always think our garden and the gardening will be better next year.

I would guess the dry conditions have prevented you from planting any epiphytes or orchids on the trees in your woods lol.

get out of here Jay. Orchids!

As it happens, DiL is a massive orchid fan (have learned loads of cute new words such as keikis). No MM over here for the forseeable future either - strictly clandestino.

I've never had overgrown rose problems, but I think I can sort of relate because I made the mistake of planting Campsis vines, and I'm still paying for it.

Welcome back, Campanula. I am glad to "meet you ". I used to read some of your old threads. Well, I am glad you feel better . My lazy days is due to heat and trying to beat the heatwave like today was impossible and staying in cold A/C room is more welcoming.

Today it felt like 103 but glad humidity was not that high if not I will get drain from energy faster.

Well, I will be off googling a list of plants you mentioned. Nice to "meet you ".

Jin

Hey Camp. I know you and I are Apiaceae obsessives, and that you love growing just about everything, so I was wondering if you have grown Aciphylla? I just recently discovered the genus on the U.K. Plant World Seeds site when ordering Hieracium maculatum 'Chocolate Dip'. They have some very cool plants. I have hemoglobin issues too. I have to take iron pills, and get procrit shots. It's been better lately, more close to normal. I do get sore really easy, but seven years of chemo can do that to a person. I've been off it for 2 years. Well I have the card and I only have to drive 2 blocks to get my medicine, come back and have a sativa chocolate with Rick Simpson Oil frosting, and then go outside and explore the 'jungle'. Cheers! .........I was just joking about the orchids. It's just that you have so many things going on it makes me think of the Hindu story of creation, and the universe. Life upon, life upon, life. My garden makes my head spin. There is way too much going on. I had a procedure last September, and I was laid up for 4 months, so I never got out to deadhead or weed, so need I say more? The other thing I can relate to is that my out of control garden is at my old place. I've put in 3 comeplete new beds at the new place and did about 15 containers. I keep these new gardens weeded, and well manicured, because I'm here most of the time, but I will have to spend more time getting the old garden in shape, because I have an aweful lot of seeds that will need to go somewhere. Great talking with you!

I too have all but given up. I have a monster of a mole problem. They're so awful and have killed so randomly I'm not sure what to do. I guess I have to get rid of them, but the prospect of getting rid of any critter saddens me. Trying to keep my gardening hope alive, I dug up some snapdragons that they hadn't destroyed (of course not. It had to be my few in number geum or catananche and matthiolas freshly planted for this autumn) in order to overhaul a bed. I have cuttings of oregano and glandularia to put in beds they haven't touched yet. I'm considering finding a way to lure the pests out of the established beds when I dig the new beds. I'd rather they kill thinned out plants or free cuttings than my plants I am trying to establish. Good luck on next year. sigh.

Yes, gardeners are generally an eternally optimistic bunch, aren't we :0)

I culled the hybrid roses a long time ago -- way too much maintenance, and still ended up looking mostly cr*ppy with blackspot, insects, and all that. I still love and grow rugosa roses -- they are tough, not bothered by blackspot, not favored by chewing insects, and they can handle pretty much anything and laugh in the face of rough winters. What's not to like about that? I'm occasionally tempted by some luscious hybrid at the nursery, but so far I haven't given in, I remember the amount of labor that would be involved, but I'll admit there is a particular David Austin hybrid I might give in to someday...

Hope you feel better soon.

This dance It's like a weapon Of self defence Against the present Present tense I won't get heavy Don't get heavy Keep it light and Keep it moving I am doing no harm As my world comes crashing down I'm dancing, freaking out Deaf, dumb, and blind I won't turn around When the penny drops I won't stop now I won't slack off https://youtu.be/6hgVihWjK2c

Nice to see you back, Campanula! I don't post here much anymore myself, either, but I do read posts when I have time. I guess I'm in the same boat as you; this summer has basically been a loss for me. I broke my right arm (I'm right-handed) in early June and have really not been able to do much of anything outdoors; I really trashed my wrist, sigh. Teach me to go jogging on a perfect, sunny day (that's how I did it, tripped and fell while running, which I have been doing without incident for 20 years!!!) I'm starting just now to get back use of the right arm, but its basically too late to salvage the growing season. Thank goodness, we've had tons of rain, for which I'm profoundly grateful, but the weeds are just unbelievable, (not to mention the mosquitos) and all I can hope to do is keep them from utterly swamping my newly planted roses, though I've already lost one. But I'm trying to not be too hard on myself, and figure I'll just kind of reboot everything next spring. I think we all have to learn to go easy on ourselves - sometimes circumstances beyond our control make it impossible to keep up with our gardens (and our lives in general!) the way we'd like to!

Good to hear from you, Campanula. Rosa helenae and Darlow's Enigma on each side of a 2-foot path? No path no more! My Darlow's cleverly bided its time, planted on a carved-out hillside in subsoil, dryish even with irrigation, all innocent and demure and modest-sized for 8 years or so. Epic spring flushes to die for; scattered bloom at best at other times. This past year, it's decided the time has come for world-domination, and has taken over a much larger area of real estate, along with a Puya coerulea doing the same thing on the same hillside (such bad conditions, how could it get very big?, I thought, ignoring that it covers literally hundreds of square feet at the UC Berkeley botanical garden). Considering both are plant-world equivalents of razor-wire, that hill is going to be a total no-go zone very soon. (Did I mention that I also planted some tough little narrow-leaved agaves nicknamed "shin-daggers" at the base? The tree guys spiffing up my old olive tree nearby last week kept running into them and can attest to the validity of the common name.)

I love Penstemon barbatus in all its varieties -- one of only a few that do well here. That Purple Twizzle, new to me, looks like a knockout.

This dance it's like a weapon of self defence against the present present tense I won't get heavy dib't get heavy Keep it light and keep it moving I am doing no harm as my world comes crashing down I'm dancing freajing out deaf, dumb, and blind I won't turn around when the penny drops I won't stop now won't slack offhttps://youtu.be/6hgVihWjK2c

Hello, campanula, so glad you made it back here, if only by accident. It's a sign of the times, I suppose, that many of us are in the garden doldrums, me with all of my companion plants, including my beloved reblooming irises, completely eaten up by the rabbits, and every rose pruned by them for as far as they can reach. It's a ghost of a garden compared to happier days, but I'm now trying to regroup with plants like salvias, penstemons and lavenders in the hope that the rabbits will leave them alone - and it is only a hope. We muddle along because the dream is so compelling, even in the face of a grim reality which can only get worse. I had never considered the deer in your forest garden, but in retrospect it seems inevitable - roses after all are edible. Best wishes to you, with the hope that you'll keep including us in your posts.

I kind of think that this time of year may be hard on all of us... Our gardens are definitely suffering and petering out from the summer, and we are getting tired of all the work (or maybe it's just me).

Me? I'm looking forward to cutting it all down for fall, and saying, as we always do, wait until NEXT YEAR, it'll be so beautiful then!!!!

You know a drought is bad when even your die hard xeric plants look like they're ready to give up the ghost. I'm happy to see the Stella de Oros all brown and ratty.I really loathe those things.

Good to see you back, Campanula. Your garden sounds like Piacenza this time of year: ratty, dry, mildewed, overgrown. Somehow it turns back into a marvel every spring.

Like everybody else, it seems, I'm behind in my gardening. Last December's ice storm in particular has cost a lot of maintenance hours, and is still operating. The storm smashed all the black locusts, which took days to cut up and distribute, and now the damaged trees are suckering with determination, clearing them making another chore. 2017 was also our great Drought Year, running from fall 2016 to fall 2017. The good news there is that established plants suffered very little, taking month after month of litte to no water in their stride. We were about at the epicenter of the drought, so it was a good test situation.

Deer, fairly recent arrivals, are horrible here, too: we have to protect trees, shrubs, and roses if we don't want them to be eaten or smashed. We apparently have a wolf population developing, too, and even my conservative dairy farmer neighbor suggested that perhaps wolves aren't such a bad thing for keeping the wild boars and deer under control. I want lynxes to make their way into our area: they're supposed to be major deer predators. Since we came here we've seen the wolves and the roe deer come: why not lynxes, too?

I went back and re-read your original post: you planted R. helenae and 'Darlow's Enigma' in an allotment? Oh, my. Well, if you want more huge ramblers for your woods, let me recommend 'Treasure Trove', R. longicuspis, 'Brenda Colvin', and all the Ayrshires, which seem to be badly confused in commerce but are all good.

I get the health and energy problems, and hope you see both restored soon. DH had a quadruple bypass and two further surgeries last year but has regained much of his previous bounce, so it can be done. I'm creaky, too, but at the moment feel okay.

I'm waiting for temperatures to drop after having spent most of the last ten days flat on my back under the fan. The change may be happening as I write: it's cloudy and cooler this morning, encouraging me to think of getting out and attacking the chore of training R. longicuspis into her flowering ash, and continuing cutting back an overgrown locust and 'Treasure Trove' growing in it. Maybe, as long as I have the ladder out, I'll shear the tops of the yew hedge. The shade garden didn't even look like a garden anymore after a month or two of neglect, but DH and I have been wrestling it back into its form. I'm hopeful that the huge amount of organic matter resulting from the ice storm will make its effects felt in the coming years as it decomposes.

Good luck!

Ho, this weird new feature of Houzz...which seems to encourage all sorts of cross posting. I realised I hadn't actually initiated a thread since the changeover. Anyway, I have only ever posted on ARF and perennials...glad to see that Hot Topics has remained a bit isolated from the 'choose 3 forums' thing as that would definitely lead to some almighty cross thread beef.

I do check in the ARF from time to time - I still have around 60 or so roses, even though they have been left to get on with doing their own thing (and have merged onto unruly walls of manic growth (I haven't pruned )or even gotten near) my old moyesii (which has a trunk like a tree)...while Schoener's Nutkana, Penelope, Tolstoi (a setigera) and Ghislaine de Feligonde have broken through the back fence, eaten up the sidewalk and are flinging canes into the road...which is currently unused by cars or pedestrians (literally, the road to nowhere). Amazingly, all the roses are holding up to drought (although not a bloom in sight) while sambucus, abelia, cotoneasters, baptisia, geums, asters, and nandina are a shrivelled, crispy mess. Even those without a waxy cuticle such as Wolley-Dod and gallicas are bearing up well.

The Ayreshire, Melissa, are my only remaining woodland stars...although I am planning on moving a few of the allotment giants to cover the backside of my shipping container (where I keep the ride-on and various woodland tools).

Yep, daylilies did not come through months of no rain at all and a record breaking summer heat. Investing in sedums, agaves, sempervivums.

Well done!! Sounds like a plan. After listening to you, I'm convinced that roses must grow much more vigorously (understatement) over there, than they do here. That would be hilarious to see some cross posting blunders get sent over to hot topics, because no matter what it's about, someone will take it, and run with it.