Community Chat

[JustJazzmom]

@Nightowlz

I used to have glossy abelias in my back landscape-- I had a pink flowering variety called 'Edward Goucher' -- it was not a bright pink but more of a shell pink color.

It's a great shrub that is also disease and insect pest resistant and can tolerate being pruned to shape-- I did not make 'meatballs' out of these shrubs.

[chickenbutt]

I'm so lame, I don't know what most of them are called.

But I do know that I like dahlias.  There are so many designs and colors - very nice.  We had some one year but haven't since.  You have to plant them new each year and I just don't do yard work.   I don't like getting my hands dirty.      

[Burnsite]

There's a Massachusetts orchid, "Lady's Slipper" that can't be picked, or couldn't when I was growing up. It was rare, but grew in profusion in a stand of pines behind my house.  Those were beautiful, lavender freckled, tiny things. 

I also love hydrangeas and peonies and lilacs (all still in the ground).  Cut flowers can make me a bit sad.  I got some sunflowers recently from a guest, though--oh, my: they look beautiful in a vase!

[chickenbutt]

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Burnsite wrote:

There's a Massachusetts orchid, "Lady's Slipper" that can't be picked, or couldn't when I was growing up. It was rare, but grew in profusion in a stand of pines behind my house.  Those were beautiful, lavender freckled, tiny things. 

I also love hydrangeas and peonies and lilacs (all still in the ground).  Cut flowers can make me a bit sad.  I got some sunflowers recently from a guest, though--oh, my: they look beautiful in a vase!

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(bolded by me)   I totally know what you mean.   I get sad that they have to die so fast.  The best you can do is take their picture while they still look nice and at least you have a lovely picture.  

My husband used to bring/send me flowers all the time and, while I was gracious receiving them, I finally asked him not to do that anymore because it just made me sad that they would die in a vase in the house instead of in their natural habitat.  ha!  (I know, weird)

[JustJazzmom]

Lady's Slipper need a certain environment to grow well-- if they were picked and transplanted to your yard, your yard better be the edges of a forest. They do well growing in a specific pH as well as the proper light conditions.

I really like the clumping versions of 'toad lily'or tricyrtis hirta.

The variety I have here in my yard is Tricyrtis hirta 'Tojen'

These are the flowers it makes in August through about now. The photo shows a close up but they are about an inch in diameter on the actual plant.

[Burnsite]

@JustJazzmom  Those are beautiful!  Very similar.  Where I grew up it was pine-y and pond-y and swampy.  And so beautiful. 

I found out the name of the flowers I loved in Brownies, where we were warned that it was illegal to pick them.

[Lucky Charm]

I would bop my husband over the head if he brought home a bouquet from a florist. 

I grow what I like (and what can handle sand) and what matches the colors in my rooms.

If I don't enjoy my daffodils, the rabbits will.  A branch from an azalea isn't going to kill it. 

And it blows people away when they see how I arrange forsythia and lilacs in huge ceramic floor vases.

Hydrangea just go on forever and even make beautiful flowers underwater, tucked in the bottom of a full vase.

I'll put anything but liquor in a shot glass, just to have something smiling back at me at the kitchen sink.  A sprig of geranium, begonia, even a Knockout rosebud.

[PINKdogWOOD]

@JustJazzmom  Well aren't y ou the Jazzy one with your tricyrtis!!!  Love toad lilies too!  Our's just ended blooming out back.

My recent new love is my growing collection of epimediums.  These are very special to me.  Then there's my spigelia marilandica - these flowers just send me!!!  My orange hibiscus is STILL blooming.  I love caladiums, so many gorgeous species & colors.  And of course can't leave out our clematis (clematii??) - we have a few great ones - My Angel has tiny fleurs but very sweet.  This one grows up through our dragon's eye pine tree and is now as high as our 3 story home is tall!!!!  CRAZY!!!!

I love roses that are fragrant (many aren't), lilacs, star gazer lilies, hyacinths.  And my heliotrope is still going strong too - wow, what a frangrance there too.

Just a few of MY favorite things.  But really, there isn't much that I don't love!

[151949]

I love carnations - I like how they look and adore their scent.I also like lily of the valley. When we were young and going to events where DH would buy me a corsage (  like prom) he knew to always buy carnations along with whatever other flower like a rose he bought. 

Remember when ladies would get a corsage to wear to church on Christmas eve and Easter? I wish gentlemen still did that.

[JustJazzmom]

@Lucky Charm

Rabbits and squirrels are more  likely to nibble on tulips and crocus than daffodils which are bitter tasting to them and poisonous. Saw once a young squirrel take a nibble of a daffodil bud and he writhed on the ground after he tasted it.

Its suggested that if you want tulips to interplant the bulbs with daffodil bulbs so the rodents (rabbits and squirrels) stay away.

@PINKdogWOOD

I want to suggest the Kordes Parfuma series of roses which are very fragrant and disease resistant. Look at this website then google the names for places to purchase.