Maggie with an iris train...

bush view, Just Joey Rose

This post was edited by lisa_h on Thu, May 9, 13 at 23:06

up close view....

Lisa, Your flowers are just so gorgeous every single year.
I especially love the roses. My Graham Thomas is in bloom right now and it makes me wish I had more roses.

And....you do too grow veggies. How could you have forgotten your beautiful zuchetta?

Dawn

LOL, so true Dawn!! That does give me a veggie gardener title, doesn't it? :)

I planted a few tomatoes, like I do every year, let's hope I get a few! Sharon is taking pity on me and bringing me a few more from her stash.

I need to put my zucchetta seeds in the ground pretty soon. I have had some very inquisitive neighborhood children lately...that should cause more questions!

Your roses are gorgeous, Lisa. I have struggled to grow a few earlier in my gardening career, but they just proved too difficult (personality) and I gave them up. I wanted to grow the highly fragrant antiques, and they just didn't do well.

Have you seen many butterflies? I have not seen many at all. I hope it's just because the cool temps have them stalled south of us and we will see more very soon.

Susan

Your roses are gorgeous, Lisa. I have struggled to grow a few earlier in my gardening career, but they just proved too difficult (personality) and I gave them up. I wanted to grow the highly fragrant antiques, and they just didn't do well.

Have you seen many butterflies? I have not seen many at all. I hope it's just because the cool temps have them stalled south of us and we will see more very soon.

Susan

Lisa

How beautiful! I always enjoying watching your blooms and listening to the answers you provide. I'm like many with inherited flowers and greenery with no idea how to care for them!

bon

Susan, We have had some pretty good numbers of butterflies here but it has been an on-and-off sort of thing. They disappear during cold spells and then reappear a few day later. Now that the recurring spells of very cold weather have ended, maybe they will stop disappearing every few days. Mostly we have had sulphurs, swallowtails and monarchs (the green milkweed in our fields just started blooming this week) but also buckeyes and miscellaneous others, including (unfortunately) the cabbage white moths. We have had more white-lined sphinx moths earlier in the year than usual too.

Because it has remained so dry here for the last three weeks, the wildflowers in the fields have been slow to bloom, so I might be seeing as many as I am because they are coming to the garden and yard looking for something in bloom. I have lots of flowers in bloom in the garden and yard, and finally the ones in the fields are starting to bloom more. Just this week the native yarrow and prickly poppies have begun to bloom in good numbers. The verbena bonariensis started blooming this week too.

Even more than seeing butterflies and moths, I've been seeing more of their cats so the population likely is about to explode.
Dawn

Stopped in to admire Lisa's roses, and read all the threads. Dawn, glad to hear about the Monarchs and your field of viridis. Would love to have the details--do you have eggs/caterpillars on the milkweed? I'd share this with Journey North. They are monitoring the Monarchs very closely this year because of the substantial decrease in the overwintering population.

Sandy

Beautiful !

Dawn, glad to hear you are seeing "some" butterflies at least. I see one or two here and there, but nothing of significance. I don't have any blooms yet to encourage them yet. Verbena is about to bloom, as is milkweed A. speciosa, and I am putting out overripe bananas for those that nectar on them.

Sandy, I just saw that one, lone Monarch, but none since. My purple milkweed is up......yea! So is tuberosa - many stems emerging finally in its 3rd year. I am worried that the passion vine is not up yet. All pipevines are doing great, as is false nettle and fennel. Lost my wafer ash. Everything is so late.

Sorry, Lisa, for getting sidetracked.

Susan

Susan, I haven't seen any butterflies in a while. I think I spotted a black swallowtail a month or so ago, but nothing really since. But...I am gone a lot, so that doesn't really mean too much. My pipevines are starting to grow a little more vigorously. I hope that means I will finally get some pipevine swallowtails this year. I probably don't have enough to really support very many, but maybe a couple.

There better be some gulf frits this year or I am gonna really pout. I have enough food for an entire city worth of gulf frit cats! I pulled a bunch of my rampant passionvine last year and I have been keeping an eye out for it to pop up again. I found one in my old compost pile...it traveled a good little distance to get there! I haven't dug it up yet. If you know anyone who wants a start of a thuggish passionvine, I can certainly dig it up for them!

Thanks for all the sweet comments! I love this time of year, my garden is always lovely right now.

Oh, Susan, I got interested in own root/ogr's when I realized how much trouble it was to grow hybrid teas. I am not very good about anything that takes fuss. I want to stick in the ground, water it and walk away!....and come back to an armful of flowers! I had also lost a rose bush to that rose rosette/mite that was decimating so many roses. All of that led me to spending WAY too much time on all the rose forums! I have lost a number of roses that came into my yard after that, but this one and my Archduke Charles are just outstanding. I will say I learned to be a fan of own root roses after that. I still fight root stock take over on my other roses.