I have only been here a month, so I should hardly be the one to post, but I can't live without my clovepinks. I love the scent. I love the blue mats they make.

Peonies. I especially like the festiva maxima even though it is an old variety, and my single Japanese white one.

Cimicifuga racemosa "Hillside Black Beauty" breathtaking!

Stewartia pseudocamilia.....well, you've heard me gush on this one before....

I thought this would help me in designing my new gardens....go for it guys! Trees/shrubs are especially interesting to me at this point.

My current passion is the native range of the genus, and determining the tolerances of same. V. acerifolium, V. dentatum (and friends), V. molle, and V. rufidulum. I'm getting over my V. nudum insanity, now that I have a passle of pollinators around the yard.

A lot of my "must haves" seem to come from my childhood, things my mother and grandfather grew in in our yard when I was growing up: lilacs, roses, sweet alyssum, petunias, lilies, tulips, daffodils. Old favorites, but that doesn't mean they aren't BEAUTIFUL. I did, however, learn from them that you should grow mint in a container!

I also love daisies, black-eyed Susans, coleus, caladium, Japanese maple, hosta, dusty miller, daylilies and pansies.

I grow culinary stuff in containers because my yard is all clay and I just have to have tomatoes (my husband is allergic so they are mine all mine!!), rosemary, the aforementioned mint, basil and chives. Not that I wouldn't plant more, but that's what is minimally necessary. :)

And it just wouldn't seem like summer without pots of geraniums (the annual kind) on my porch and deck.

Sigh...I hate winter.

I don't do much with shrubs or trees, but I'd have to include lilacs and Rose of Sharon. I have several trained as trees, and while the 8 million seedlings are a pain, I just love the flowers.

Peonies, and my roses. I like those big, blousy, over the top flowers. Paperwhites and hyacinths and my orchids when they bloom.

For years I only grew vegetables and herbs, and herbs remain among my favorite of all plants. The basils, lavender, lemon verbena and the scented geraniums, especially Lemon Rober. It always makes me think of my grandmother when I smell it. And the mints; applemint, pineapple mint and chocolate mint. I experiment with other herbs, but those are the ones I must always have.

The one annual I discovered last year that I will never be without again is night blooming phlox, Matthiola longipetala It's small and weedy looking, and the small, floppy, star-shaped flowers aren't even open in the day. But at night, they have such a sweet-scent they perfume the entire yard!