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| LOVING:
Tiarella. Wow, I love this plant! I got it at a swap two years ago and it's so beautiful and easy and it's spreading nicely but not at all aggressively and it brightens up its corner and I want a dozen more to plant all over. Coral bells. These always look so pretty in spring with the arching stems and the bright pink flowers. The foliage on my 'Purple Rain' salvia -- so lush and furry. Geranium 'Rozanne.' It has gotten a lot bigger, and its foliage is forming a beautiful mound, with the leaves such a pretty form. Another plant I'd like a dozen more of. Centaurea montana. Nice leaves. Easy plant. Tidy mound, neither dying out nor taking over. A good garden citizen. I'm looking forward to the blue flowers. I've got an early columbine blooming in a nice pink, elegantly spreading itself over the plants not yet flowering. A shot of color is so welcome in early spring. Alchemilla mollis. Why did it take me so long to get this? I love this plant, it looks so great after rain. Doublefile viburnum. Great shrub. About to flower. I love it. NOT LOVING: The slugs! Gar, they're already everywhere, the tiny babies and I just can't hand-pick them all off. I know they are innocent creatures, but I hate them anyway. I'm sure they have some purpose in the cycle of nature, but, just, yuck. The four-lined plant bugs already eating my 'Rozanne' geranium, among other things. The nymphs are so tiny and hard to spot and I am having trouble picking many of them off. Then once they get to be big, they move too fast to get. Anyone know of a good way to get rid of them? I hate them. Why don't the slugs eat them? My yarrow. OK, I love yarrow, but it's eating the rest of the garden. I divided and thinned it last month and now it's laughing at me. But it does look very nice and blooms beautifully, so I will not complain any further. This is my favorite time of year... so much promise, and not hot yet. Gentle spring. So what are you loving and hating in your garden right now? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by echinaceamaniac 7 (My Page) on Sat, May 14, 11 at 21:45
| I'm hating the stormy weather this year. We had a hail storm yesterday. Argh! My favorite plants this year are: Yucca 'Color Guard' - Love the colors and looks good with everything. Penstemon 'Dark Towers' - Massive display of blooms this year. I had no idea they got so beautiful. Easy Does It Rose - Wow. What a show. Nepeta 'Walker's Low' - This has really been beautiful this year. It looks like Lavendar from a distance and it doesn't die from rain! Amsonia 'Blue Ice' - Love the color and compact form. Rooting cuttings of these! Russian Sage - Various forms - I have volunteer seedlings too - Can't say enough about the color and texture. When Nepeta 'Walker's Low' is resting, these take over from it! They look great together and take up each other's slack! Everything is growing like crazy. Bone meal last year must be what helped them all! Disappointment: Echinacea 'Strawberry Shortcake' - The blooms are ugly...hoping they improve before long. |
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- Posted by crackingtheconcrete 7a (My Page) on Fri, May 20, 11 at 21:47
| I am loving Thalictrum Koreana -the leaves are just a fantastic shape and adds a great texture most of the season Deutzia "Chardonnay Pearls "-It's growing in a container and the buds were very very charming and it has been a froth of whitweeksalmost 2 weeks. Also heuchera Peach Flambe is a fantastic bright spot in the garden. I'm struggling with loving my Dancing Geisha violets. They get a healthy mound of foliage and no blooms. I thought since this was their second year it would be different, but I guess not.:( |
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- Posted by gardenweed_z6a 5b/6a N CT (My Page) on Sat, May 21, 11 at 6:26
| I am loving the bright, jewel-tone colors of the lupines I grew last year from seed via winter sowing. I love that the daphne 'Carol Mackie' I planted 4 years ago finally bloomed for the first time with heavenly-scented flowers. I'm grinning because the tiny weigela shrub I set in part sun has tripled in size and is so heavy with beautiful blooms this year the branches are low to the ground. I'm tickled that the gaura/wand flower survived the winter and is sending up lots of healthy new growth. It was such a great companion plant with Russian sage lastyear--by happy accident I planted them side by side. All my baptisia/false indigo are loaded with flowerbuds and I expect to enjoy quite a show in the very near future even if the weather doesn't cooperate. Not loving the non-stop rain and never-ending cold weather altho' I'm keeping the buckets and tubs of water for later instead of dumping them out like I did last year. I need a rain barrel. Not loving the sawfly larvae that chewed all the leaves off a few of my columbines and left nothing but the stems and a couple of flower buds. I may have headed the slugs off with crushed eggshells sprinkled around all my hosta--only time will tell if it worked. Haven't seen any bunnies or woodchucks so far this year but assume it's only a matter of time before that battle heats up again. |
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| Oh, I'm happy to hear that about Chardonnay Pearls. I'm getting one as soon as Bluestone has their sale this year. :) LOVING: Coreopsis Early Sunrise that I grew from seed last year. It bloomed the first year all summer. It's back again, twice the size and covered with blooms! The blooms are a bit too gold for my usual taste, but you have to love something that's doing so well! Salvia Caradonna is just gorgeous. My favorite Salvia. It, too, bloomed ALL year until very late fall with deadheading. Amethyst Mist Heuchera. Saw it recommended here so many times that I bought five last year and put them under a Crimson Queen Japanese Maple. I am so glad I did that. What a great grower. New Yellowood tree. Bought it at a native plant sale this spring, finding out later it is a very slow grower. Was a little disappointed, but so far there doesn't seem to be anything slow about the way it's putting on growth. NOT LOVING: One of my Aster Oblongifolius is sick. Aster wilt? I don't know what's going on, but today I'm going to try digging it up and separating the sick part from the healthy part, and replacing the soil. The other one is doing awesome. Stinkhorn Fungus. :( This has plagued me since we moved into this house. WTH? Where does this come from? I thought we had beaten it, but now it's popping up in another spot. If you don't know what this is, consider yourself very lucky. You have to dig up the little "eggs," which are numerous. It smells like something rotten. If anyone has ever successfully eliminated it, please share! CICADAS! The 13-year brood is back, and it is disgusting. Fortunately they seem to be confining themselves to one area of our yard underneath three mature trees, but in that area they have attached themselves to the shrubs underneath, forming a thick mulch of discarded shells. Hurk. It is beyond gross. |
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| I'm loving Dicentra 'Goldheart' And all the emerging hosta. Way to go guys! Spring's here. Heuchera. My heuchera is looking really good in all the gardens, particularily H. 'Encore' and 'Marmalade.' However, in my front garden is an old seeded variety called 'Oakleaf,' well over 15 years old, grown in direct sun. It has exceptionally ruffled, deep purple leaves and never scorches. It gets bigger and better every year. I replant it about every 10 years, when foliage becomes sparse. I have a lot of the new villosa hybrids, which I like very much indeed, but right now, I have to say that 'Oakleaf' is remarkably beautiful. Hellebores - all of them. Any of them. All the time. Mertensia virginiana- (Virginia Bluebells) is just opening, and remarkably late at that, but those soft blue-green leaves and true blue flowers make my heart beat stronger. Tulips and daffodils. Maybe the weather has been horrible, but like hellebores, these plants just look better and better when conditions are cold and wet. Trilliums. Our trilliums were at least two weeks late this year, but my goodness, what a proliferation. Their blossoms are huge and expanded, and the forest floor is a carpet of white. Even better, the much more rare (in my forest) red Trillium erectum has decided to spread. There are clumps of it all through the forest, and its bloom season has been prolonged. I also discovered a huge, showy patch of Dicentra cucullaria (Dutchman's Breeches) in the forest. I have never seen it before. The flowers are just fading now. It's a charming plant, and although I've been on the lookout for it for years, never found it before. Fritillaria. I have a good fritillaria collection, and the bulbs have spread and bloomed admirably, lasting a nice long time during the recent nasty weather. I'm enjoying them particularily this year because I know that the dreaded Lily Beetle is very close to my gardens, and I expect we will be infested sooner than later. Euphorbia 'Bonfire'. Just get this plant. It is beautiful all spring, summer and fall, but is at its most fetching right now with glowing chartreuse flower bracts and purple foliage. Glaucidium palmatum. Google this, if you don't know what it is. I have a pink one, with several flowers blooming now, but all of a sudden, a white one has emerged in my back shade garden. It just glows. Curiously, I planted the white one in that place about five years ago, and it promptly died, only to emerge now in all its triumphant splendour. There's more, but I have taken enough time. There is also less, with the depredations of the deer, rabbits and ants, but today, finally, the sun is shining, the rain has stopped, and it's bad karma to worry about the imperfections. |
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- Posted by crackingtheconcrete 7a (My Page) on Sat, May 21, 11 at 9:53
| Connie, you will love Chardonnay Pearls and Bluestone is having their sale now! I'M adding one that I can't believe I forgot - Sanguineria canadensis Multiplex. Every year I forgot it's there and then it appears and I fall in love with it, madly. LOL |
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| I'm loving pretty much everything right now, in my garden and everybody else's - spring is spectacular in Michigan! The magnolia trees were really something this year - just beautiful! I'm not loving the messy patios I have to clean up - I have maple trees close to the house and they drop their crud all over the place in the spring, and it's been too wet to clean anything up. Hopefully it's dried enough today that I'll be able to sweep everything and get my patios ready for the season - that is my gardening goal for today :0) |
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