WOW, Jan, you're good -- at gardening and photography! Enjoyed the tour. I can tell you live well to the south of us. That ain't the "good ole hard-packed Alabama red clay" we have in NE AL.

Did you lay all the paths yourself? Which do you find works better, gravel or the larger flat stones you have in the walkway to the front door?

Happy gardening! Alice

Thanks Alice...nope, the clay's here but it's beneath a good sandy loam. Now I do have more clay in some of the back beds due to the lot being leveled when the house was built, but over the years, I've gradually improved them with amendments and lots of mulch.
As for my pathways, yep, did them all myself. I don't know whick works best, I just like a variety. That way, you don't get bored touring my garden. LOL I have gravel, flagstone, field stone, brick, grass, and mulch paths. Whatever I have handy at the moment is what I use. :)
Glad you enjoyed the tour, you should come on down sometime and take a real one. I love to have folks visit my gardens.
Jan

WOW! VEry impressive gardens! I love the way you've laid out the beds and the various walkways, statues, etc.

I see you label. What labeling system do you use? And where do you get your metal markers?

BTW, my muscadine jam didn't last the month :( Be thinking about what I can offer in Fall for a bunch of jars! My son and I both love muscadine jam!!!

Idig....thanks for your sweet comments. I do mark, especially my registered daylilies. And, since I wanted to keep track of my new echinaceas and salvias (for trade purposes you know), I also marked them. I buy my markers from Paw Paw and use a Brother P-touch labeler with the industrial brand tape. I never have a problem with fading or peeling labels.
Now about that jam....I think you're looking for Margaret and (birdlady) Jan. I don't do jam!! :)
The other Jan "LOL"

Here is a link that might be useful: Paw Paw Everlast markers

Jan, this was the iris bed you ripped out? How perfectly lovely! Now I didn't ask last time but I am this time. What echinaceas did you come home with and did you get a Hot Lips salvia? I went to the website and saw that they had them. I WILL get me one next yr from somewhere LOL. I'm going to have to move around some of my echinaceas and also some phlox plants. The beds they are in are slowly turning into shade beds. But hey that means more hostas and other shady type plants to go in that bed.
I'll try to look at your albums when I'm at work or at my mother's, you know how dial up is in Podunk Alabama.

Hi Kabby...yep, that was the iris bed...just looked terrible and they never bloomed very well for me. :) So now, I am pleased with the results. Here's what I got at PFTP last week.
Echinaceas(Ruby Star, Summer Sky, Twilight, Harvest Moon, and Sundown, which has a bloom open today and it's gorgeous)

Salvias (Black & Blue (already had some but I love it so wanted some in this bed too), Hot Lips (got one at the plant swap but it's in my butterfly bed out back), Lipstick, Raspberry, Baby Pink, Salvia Sinaloensis (bicolor sage), and Pineapple sage.
I also got an orange Asclepias (Butterfly Weed).

I moved a pale yellow lantana that was getting way to much shade and some Lucifer Montbrecia into it. Oh, and some Moonbeam coreopsis too. I think it'll look real nice once it fills in, and the butterflys and hummers should love it. Did you notice that I didn't put even 1 daylily in it? LOL

You really need to start coming to the swaps Kabby. You would be surprised at the stuff I've traded for over the past few years.
Oh yes, I remember when I had dialup..yuck...now I have Roadrunner high speed with turbo boost. Yea!!!! :)
Jan

I thought about the two Jan thing afetr I posted. Maybe I'll get it right one of these days. Your gardens are lovely!

Which Ptouch do you use, there are so many it is confusing to try and decide what to get. The markers from Paw Paw hold up well? I've read some places that some metal markers fall apart quickly.

Thanks for the input, even if you don;t make muscadine jam! LOL!!

Kabby: If you come to the Fall swap, I may be able to dig you a "hot lips". I have a big one that may have a piece to spare by then. Alice

idig...I get the Rose Markers (11 1/2 in). They are item E in the catalog. Don't get the cap style, the metal will come off those, but the rose markers stake goes through the metal and holds up very well.
I have the PT 2700 label maker and love it. I use TZ-S251 tape which is 1 in. wide. It's the industrial tape. I like the white tape with the black print.
Hope this is the info you wanted, and oh yeah, I don't make muscadine jam, but I make a mean blackberry cobbler. Just ask my son! :)
Jan

"Did you notice that I didn't put even 1 daylily in it?"
Isn't that blasphemy Jan? Snort... I understand, I have a few tropical beds that have not the first daylily in them too.
Now cut that out Alice! You enabler! I always seem to have a daylily trip going on in the spring and in the fall no matter what weekend it's on, I have to work. Maybe if I know enough time in advance this yr I can ask for that weekend off. The manager I have now isn't as rigid as my former boss so maybe it will happen this yr. Hmmm gonna have to start potting stuff up...
Idig, I also use the P Touch, it's many yrs old now so the models have probably changed. I use Eon markers and althought the metal plates themselves hold up well the stakes start to rust after awhile. Especially in nitrogen rich, eat the hubcaps off the car, hot chicken poop. Didn't know it was so hot...

Jan, I been looking at your spring garden pictures, you got some really pretty things and you sure grow'em well too.......Enjoyed sitting here on the back porch listening to it rain and looking at your photos. you sho nuff got a nice place....

Paul from Alabama

Why thank you Paul from Alabama, I'm glad I could brighten your day a bit. If you'd like to see some close ups of some of my daylilies blooming this year, just go on over to the Daylily Forum and you'll find some recent posts from me showing lots of my gorgeous blooms. :)
Jan

Thanks for the label and marker info! I will look into it. I need something plant like to do on all these rainy days and when the ground is too saturated to mess with. Not complaining, wouldn't dare after the drought last year, just itching to get some things in the ground and it is sooo wet here!

Jan, I love blueberry cobbler too!! Looks like I'll be begging for food at the next swap instead of bringing home a car full full of plants! LOL

How do you keep grass from invading your beds? Do you have an underground edging/barrier or spray weed killer around the edges? I have been edging my beds with those bricks that interlock (and cost about $1.75 each, which gets expensive quick)and weed eat around them. Thanks also for the info about the tags.
Susan.

Susan, I used to use a maual (hand held) edger that looks like a crescent shaped flat shovel, but since I have so many beds, this was a very time comsuming chore. I now have a gas powered edger that I can push around the beds. I still tidy up the edges at times with the manual one, but not too often and not all at once. :) I do not have any kind of weed barrier around my beds nor in them. I've just used lots of mulch over the years which keeps down the weeds and I'm constantly pulling out any that try to take root in my beds. It's just an ongoing battle especially this year, it seems, with all the rain we've had.
I just like the clean look of edged beds but I do have some with monkey grass edging and some that are on a slope so have rock, brick or landscape timbers as edging.
Oh, and I don't use weed killer any where near my plants and flowers. I'm afraid of drift that could kill or damage them. :)
Jan

Jan your beds have the most professional look to them because you edge this way. You should make a trip to Tim Bell's garden in Sycamore GA one spring and also RicATee in south AL. Tim Bell doesn't have JUST a hybridizers garden, he has many companion plants incorporated into his beds with the manicured pathways. It is an all day affair at Tim's and you still won't see everything.
I told Tee of RicATee that her gardens are a miniature Tim Bells. Many companion plants, I'm all the time finding things that I didn't see before. Her garden won best landscaping at last yrs spring Regional. This is the daylily regional for those that don't share the addiction that Jan and I have : )

Hi - I'm new to this forum and I have a few questions to ask here, then I'll post my lawn question as a new message.

I am also looking for a labeling solution for my perennials. Someone mentioned a labelmaker and a metal stake type label. We used to use those for my mom's professional perennial garden. The ones we used were zinc coated steel with thick aluminum inserts and when you wrote the name on the insert, it was automatically impressed into the metal and therefore became permanent no matter how hot the sun got. So I'm looking for some of those, if anyone knows what catalog to look in.

Jan - your beds are beautiful. I have to keep the square footage down so small it is heart breaking. I'm not able to do the work myself, and have you ever tried to teach a lawn guy how to weed a flower bed without losing your prized specimens? I haven't managed to yet!

Looking forward to some plant info exchanges if nothing else!

Pat - Valley, AL

Hi Pat and welcome to the AL forum. Thanks for the compliments on my garden. I ust the zinc coated steel with aluminum plates but I use a label maker and industrial stength tape to print the labels and stick to the plates.
Hope you enjoy the forum, and happy gardening.
Jan

Jan, your garden is GORGEOUS!!! I know that you must be so proud, as you should be!