Garden

[x Hedge]

@gardenman,  that cherry & white geranium sure has a lot of punch! You wouldn't need a mass of that.

I Googled your datura/brugmansia. Very nice!

I would definitely point it out and ask you about that, and want to step over to get a closer look. 

[x Hedge]

@Hedge  Thank you.  I am going to buy some to grow.  Do you ever eat the bublets that grow on the top?

---

I've tried. They're not worth the trouble of trying to peel and slice.  Just plant them. They're not picky about depth either.  Fully covered, or nose poking out, or half out. If a bulblet just falls on the surface of the dirt it'll try to root.

Edited to add:  I just Googled Allium cepa aggregatum. Most of the images shown are NOT the variety I have. Mine don't flower. The bulb isn't globular, it's finger-like as a salad onion is, except when it matures in fall and is teardrop shaped.

[Sweetbay magnolia]

Strangely enough, I cultivate something that grows wild 'round here - NY Ironweed (Vernonia) and when it rises to 7-8' heights in my border, everyone wants to know about it.

Then the north winds blow . . . toast for the Vernonia.  Hopefully the seeds get carried downstream.

[gardenman]

---

@x Hedge wrote:

@gardenman,  that cherry & white geranium sure has a lot of punch! You wouldn't need a mass of that.

I Googled your datura/brugmansia. Very nice!

I would definitely point it out and ask you about that, and want to step over to get a closer look. 

---

That gernaium just jumped out at me in the store. I hadn't seen one like that before. It's also got lots of buds coming along. One of our local growers (La Rosa Greenhouses) is pushing a yellow Geranium hard this year, but it's not all that impressive of a flower. The yellow is kind of dingy and the flower size isn't all that impressive. It's an achievement in getting a yellow, but it's not an especially good yellow.

The Brugmansia/datua family of plants are very impressive. Mine has the long yellow trumpets that hang down. I took a cutting of it last fall to get a jumpstart this year in a pot and it's about 18" tall now, so hopefully I can bump up the flowering time a month or two. You want to be careful with those plants around crazed teenagers though as they have a narcotic like effect when the leaves or flowers are made into a tea, but the outcome is so variable that many die trying to use it. Even most of the crazy sites telling people how to get high on pretty much anything discourage the use of those plants as a high. People die from using them every year.

[maggiemae1]

Gardenman, I used to have a lot of the Angel Trumpets in my yard but I have animals and were told they were deadly to animals and humans so i cut all of my down. I had a lot of the different colors (white,pink yellow) they were very pretty but i had to be on the safe side.

I know this plant is not all that unusal but it is one of my favorite plants to grow in my yard. I call it the Snowball Vibernum (spelling) It is so full of large white snowballs in the spring and when they start to fall on the ground it looks liked it snowed. My husband always wants to know when his favorite tree is going to bloom every spring. It's planted in the back side yard but you can see it in the front yard over my wood fence. The tree is pretty old (25 yrs at least) now.

I have one other brush i love but i do not know for sure what it is. I thought you might know. It's a tree bush and the blooms look like small bottle brush blooms but i don't think it is a bottle brush bush. The blooms are smaller than the regular bottle brush plant. Any ideas? I also have a big hangup on hostas. I own a ton of hostas in pots and ground and all of mine are finally up and growning. Sorry i got so long winded.

[gardenman]

@maggiemae1

Yeah the Angels Trumpets are not a safe plant if you have anyone who's "experimental" in the immediate area. I'm happy to report my cats have never shown any interest in them whatsoever. I leave a few plants they like to chomp on within easy reach (palms, spider plants) and they avoid everything else. The scent and the look of the flowers on the Angel Trumpets are kind of hard to beat however. They're just a gorgeous plant.

If we had a few wild and crazy teens move into the neighborhood, I would likely remove it to avoid that potential temptation, but at 58 I'm currently the youngest person in my neighborhood and I'm smart enough to avoid ingesting it. I've never seen any wildlife even remotely interested in it either, so it's pretty safe around here. 

[tototwo]

Ducks.  A pair of mallards fly over to our backyard from a nearby lake twice a day, early morning and evening.  We don't know what the draw for them is, but they hang around a clump of daylilies out by our swing/arbor.  They eat birdseed that falls on the ground from a birdfeeder, tuck their heads under their wings and nap, or just waddle around.  They always stay about an hour and then they fly back to the lake.  We joke that we're growing ducks next to the daylilies.  I sit in my swing in the evenings and wait for them.  They don't seem to notice I'm there.