Thank you, Brian. I will look for Invincible Spirit or Bella Anna this spring. I looked at both online and the blooms look simiIar. I have a place that I can plant one of them. There are so many newer and beautiful introductions to tempt.

Love everybody's pictures!

Frilly, I love the curves of your flower beds. It really softens the hardscape. I am afraid my husband would have a navigation nightmare, though!

Debra, I have seen your flower beds grow from practically nothing. What you have done is nothing short of a miracle. Very beautiful!

Char, I love the first picture with the way it weaves in and out of the flower beds. I just want to stroll through it.

Amy you have such beautiful, lush beds. Love all the colors, especially the daylilies.

Becky, I hope you gave your dh a backrub Love the arbor and the plumbago. I wish it would grow here as something more than an annual.


And Brian, oh my! You have increased the value of your house for sure What is that red daylily in the front of the second picture? It is gorgeous in that huge clump

Loved the change in your garden photos Brian.

My garden mainly concentrates on reclaiming the lawn at the moment. I have slowed this down a bit because of the recent dry periods here and the water bills. I started on a clay base in 2006 - typically the developers had removed the top soil and probably sold it elsewhere, which is an annoying practise. Because I am on an island some distance from the mainland, I have a tertiary treated septic which maintains the garden quite well but only in about a quarter of the yard. Daylilies are the mainstay, but natives are close behind with vegetables and fruit next. I do not have a formal structure but it basically revolves around the large natives - some of which are grafted.

I give wildlife the main access to the garden but sometimes they can cause much heartache with their damage - but they can also engender an exquisite joy.

tertiary treated septic -- pardon my ignorance, but how does this work--in a nutshell?

Your place is gorgeous! LOVE IT!

about your soil, do you have a compost pile? I had some really bad soil and I tilled it and mixed in some compost. Then I used straw as a mulch cover fairly thick for a few years and my soil improved a lot.

blue23rose said:Love everybody's pictures!
And Brian, oh my! You have increased the value of your house for sure What is that red daylily in the front of the second picture? It is gorgeous in that huge clump

The red in the front are two NOID, I think the front one is Crimson Pirate (it is a diploid) and the one behind it is a tetra unknown. The patch near the porch is "Sheik of Araby".
Thanks everybody for the comments!

Gleni,

Your pictures and plants/yard are beautiful! It is wonderful that you incorporate native plants in your landscape. I can relate to the wildlife as well. I like catering to insects but not too much to the rabbits!

Frillylily, it means the sewerage is treated and filtered to an extent that the water can be used for human consumption or safely discharged back into the environment. Naturally, I prefer the later.

Frilly, the area of the discharge we are not able to grow trees, or build, on by law. Palms are an exception for some reason. I am on a low slanting hill. Recently, as I get rid of the lawn I bring in treated soil (so as not to become weed city) and level it. I am thinking of redoing the first clay areas I planted years ago using the method you mention. The daylilies seem to do well in the clay - at least in flowering - but the clumps took a long time to look decent. In the new soil I brought in, the fans take off like rockets.

When you did your water features, were you successful in bringing in the frogs?

Nice pictures, Glen and it's nice to see where all those daylily pictures are coming from. I wouldn't mind sitting at that table out back and soaking up some sun right now

Regarding the frogs, I built two ponds and never did get frogs. I had a very large bull frog show up once but I suspect the neighbors kids had something to do with that as well as the crawdad I discovered... Anyway, couldn't irradiate the crawdad, but did manage to capture the frog and dumped him out at a local city park miles away. HATE bull frogs, they get rather large and will eat anything that fits in their mouth-inlcluding fish. I did however have a plethora of toads. Toads everywhere. Some of the toads drowned in the first pond and I had to built a toad ramp so they would have a way out of the water after they jumped in. The sides were too slick and they could not get out. They would lay gobs of eggs all the time and I had tadpoles like crazy which I found out my goldfish would not eat.
I envy your treated soil LOL mine is Weed City
Most of the sewers around this part of the country at least, just put the water back in the ground by underground pipes and the water is of course not reused for anything. When I was renting in OK we had a sewer set up as you describe where the water is cleaned through I think 3 different tanks/filters and then released onto the lawn by sprinklers, a great way to reuse the water, but still sort of dumb.... the grass is green in three patches lol the rest was just as brown and dead as everything else around. I guess when you are that desperate for something green even patchiness is a good thing!

Brian, I second Crimson Pirate, I thought that as soon as I seen your photo. I have CP and it is a proliffic bloomer with rich color, and a bud builder... it blooms and blooms. I must say I gave up on dead heading and it just looked like a big red glob!

Glen, Amy, Vickie, Brian and Becky, I truly enjoyed seeing all those beautiful pictures of the gardens and landscape.

Thanks Mike! It sure made me pine for spring just going through the pictures

Forgot to add that I added Annabelle and Vanilla Strawberry hydrangea last spring. VS was the only one that bloomed. I will try some cuttings like Doris is doing to spread these beauty around.
Both sitting on window sill after March delivery.



VS in August


VS color starting to change.


VS more strawberry coming in.


Tree stump is used for one of my pots.


This one has come a long way from summer 2011 inception.


Anything goes bed.


Yard shot from second floor balcony.


Another


What a difference a couple weeks make.


Another


With border removed it's time to take out a little grass.


To be continued............

Wonderful, Mike!

LOVE your gardens, Mike! I especially like the mass planting of hosta. What a spectacular show it makes! I added 2 Vanilla Strawberry hydrangeas this fall after seeing one in a garden that I visited. I planted them in large pots. I will see how they do in pots this year. I may decide to plant them in the ground in the fall. Thanks for sharing your beautiful garden with us!

I have had no success with hydrangea, even though I love them, because they just take soooo much water to keep alive in our summers. And I am lax. However, a friend gave me a Wayside Gardens gift certificate and I am considering trying one more time with this one:
http://www.waysidegardens.com/...

It would be small enough to easily maintain in a container...if I can conquer my summer indolence enough to keep it watered!

Sounds like it would be the right size for your garden and would look good there. I enjoy all the pictures that you post of your garden year round. I have come to like the look of hydrangeas growing in pots, but they do need regular watering. The late summer to fall doldrums hit here, and I have to fight them. By that time it is still hot and dry and blooming is winding down. Problem is that I wind down before I should!

Thank you, Doris.

I have not had any luck with hydrangeas either, they wilt badly. I thought of planting them in more shade, but I am afraid they wouldn't bloom that way? Maybe after a few years when they get rooted and more established they will not wilt down as bad in the sun. I planted some Endless Summer hydrangeas last fall that I bought on a Lowe's clearance rack for like $2. I hope they do ok for me, especially after having such a bad winter their first year in the ground.
Love the Willow tree, that is one I always wanted but never space for!

Frillylily in regards to the willow tree, I am not a big fan. DW brought it home from Aldi back in 2007. It sheds too much for me. I am always picking up the little branches that break off.
before I cut the grass. I am considering covering the grass under the tree to cut down on this weekly ritual. It is also the last tree to shed its leaves. By that time the snow is here.