Sue, who needs travel magazines when we can subscribe to your posts for free! Your photographs are superb - such a good eye (and a good camera, too - hope you're enjoying it!)

Sue,
the red peony with the fluffy center that was at Dancing Oaks, is called "White Caps"
Diana

Oh thanks Diana for adding that!

Glad you enjoyed the tour, I have tons of vacation trip shots on my online Picasa albums if anyone wants to see them. Last years Europe, lots of California wandering trips. And I'm still using the XTi, hubby has claimed the 7D although I do use the new Tameron lens and he also got the Canon 100-400 lens.

Steve - Why can't you grow peonies & delphiniums? They grow great here! In fact, I think delphinium is the state flower.. either larkspur or columbine (either of which grow like weeds here).

I can grow columbines. I have yellow ones Aquilegia "Swallowtail" and orange ones A desertorum. The gophers and voles both find them delicious, but four survive. I keep planning to buy more. I'm betting that its the blue columbine that is the state flower of CO.

Haven't tried delphiniums. Heck, I didn't even try delphiniums in NJ because I understood they need constantly damp soil. I know it's not true of D. ajacis or larkspur, but I thought it was of those gimungus blue ones. - Pacific Giants?

I planted six peonies last fall - plants with big, hefty roots. But somehow they have never been in the path of the watering hose, even though I water carefully by hand. Two survive and they both look terrible. The rest have fried.

Delphiniums seem, for me, to be one of the easiest plants to grow! I bought 2 3 years ago from HD in those little $1 pots they were having a special on.. and fell in love considering that they keep coming back for me every year!! This is last year...

I've always loved the blue delphiniums. I generally plant one or two, when they first come out in the nurseries here in February. But by now (June) they are toast! Fried completely to a dead brown. But I love them, and plant one or two anyway...just so I can enjoy them. I usually plant them next to my cobalt birdbath and cobalt blue hedge hogs, with yellow pansies and hot pink petunia's. I'm ready for fall. It's getting to darn HOT here.

Alan

My Mom hadn't tried them for a few years and decided to get a 6 pack late winter and she was so pleased with the show that she plans on doing them every year. This was mid May. She already cut off the main first blooms and said that new bloom heads are shooting up taller than the original ones.

I got some of those kinds as well. It's amazing how many different kinds there are! I planted mine along side my ponds so that they'll get waterspray (or at least humidity). I've got blue ones & white ones. Plus I love how it's a true BLUE color.. not a variety of purple or red or deep pink, but a true honest-to-goodness BLUE. On the right side of my ponds I've got blue Bachelor Buttons and Blue Delphiniums, and on the right side I have the kind that Sue showing in alternative blue/white/blue/white/blue.

Sue - Your mom has got to be careful.. I've seen those 4' tall!!

lol! Me too Toni. I've always been annoyed by plants, especially ROSES, that are called blue that are the farthest thing from blue. If there purple there NOT blue

Alan - LOL! I have all of these next to my "blue" rose garden.. I have Stainless Steel, Singin' the Blues, Heirloom, Sterling Silver... I also planted Campanula bellflower "Birch", blue chips (some kind of creeping ground cover), and cranesbill (pink? purple?).

Why would she need be careful?? It's not dangerous.

I agree that true blue is one of the most coveted colors for the garden. And delphiniums are among the best at delivering true blue. I'm thinking it's time I give them a try - at least once I do the mulch thing here.

I recently saw bachelor's buttons blooming with California poppies along the street and I decided I need more of both of those colors in the garden. Thanks, Toni, for the reminder!

I'm afraid that apart from their fragrance, I've not been very attracted to the so-called blue roses since they are barely purple or violet, let alone blue. (Rembember ROYGBIV? There's a whole, almost forgotten color between violet and blue, indigo, and it deserves its own space, probably also to be brought into the garden by delphiniums.)

Steve, I'm not sure about Prescott, but down here in the HOT desert, once you put out Bachelor Button seeds you have Bachelor Buttons for life. In my garden they come back every year. I try to control just how many come back by pulling a lot of them out before they set seed, and leaving a few here and there to seed at will. Seems to be working. There are true blue bachelor buttons too...so I love having them in my garden.

alan

Ooooh my Sue!!! Just FABULOUS photos!
The in-laws place is just lovely!
I LOVE that first shot with the rose, wooden fence and arbor.
And your dogs...overdose on cuteness!
The clay pipe wall is S O O - C O O L!
GREAT pics...all of them!

Glad you enjoyed the pics!