>>>Lyn, I love your clear and concise wording on the Dr. Huey information. We discussed whether or not to dig out a Dr. Huey rose at our Rose Society meeting tonight. Would you mind if I used your explanation in our club newsletter?
I had a guy once tell me that all his roses "turn" red because of his SOIL!!

Cindi ... feel free to use the Dr. Huey post for your newsletter.

Smiles,
Lyn

Got some pictures of some roses (mostly minis) and other things blooming. Don't have much going on in my yard yet.

Mini's.
Sweet Arlene, Winter Magic, Vista


International Herald Tribune, Vineyard Song, an apricot no name


Pandemonium, Denver Dream (notice how something ate the bud?), & a different Vista


Big roses
Angel Face, Honey Sweet, Stainless Steel


Picante & Theresa Bugnet


One of my Concorde Grape Tradescantia with a visitor!


Electric Blue Penstemon w/May Night salvia, Bluebell Bellflowers with Electric Blue Penstemon & May Night Salvia


Blue Hill Salvia with Rose Sensation Salvia, May Night Salvia with Victoria White Salvia, May Night Salvia with Hotwings Tatarian Maple tree (yes, I have lots of Salvia)


May Night (sheesh, more?) with False Indigo (first time it's bloomed!), Pineleaf Penstemons (yellow & red varieties)

It looks to me like you have quite a lot going on - very colorful!

Toni ...

The roses do look good and you must be happy to see their blooms, but the salvias and Penstemon just knock my socks off ! They are lovely !

Can you get a garden photo so we can see how you have put them together ?

Smiles,
Lyn

Lyn - No. LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Why?

Because I'm embarrassed by all the weeds & the algae in my ponds. As soon as I get them cleaned up, then I'll post pics. This is what it looked like last year.

Toni ...

OK .. I'll wait ...

I've just spent the last five hours shredding leaves for mulch. The mulch I put down this spring is virtually gone because of the heat. I came in to clean up a bit before I go back to work. When I first came in, I was covered with mulch dust and looked like a raccoon in reverse. The only clean area on my face was where my safety glasses blocked the dust ...

I have lots and lots of weeds. I promise not to share them, if I can look forward to more photos of the salvias and penstemon.

I am trying to figure out how to incorporate them into my garden. I've seen nursery photos and have visited the other forums, but your photos today really got me thinking about them.

Thanks.

Smiles,
Lyn

Lyn - bad picture.. Please do not notice the algae in the pond.. I worked on that this evening & got it cleaned up but still need to work on the ponds.

Toni ...

That bed looks great ! I can see that you planted them away from the roses and that's the direction I was hoping to go. It looks better in your photo than it did in my imagination.

Thank you so much for sharing.

Smiles,
Lyn

Hi Everybody and Happy June!
I didn't think this past winter was EVER going to end but my roses have been blooming for a few weeks now.
I had some surprising winter damage this year...well maybe not so surprising with as horrid as our winter was
but wasn't expecting some of my hardy ramblers and shrub roses to be hit so hard....Constance Spry, Amethyst, Morden Centennial,
Apple Jack were knocked way down more than I've ever had happen before so no blossoms on those this year except for maybe Apple Jack.
Then about a week ago my we had a storm roll thru with high winds and broke the wrought iron trellis Lillian Gibson was entangled
in and it was bent way over to the ground so had to cut her way back. Doubly sad is there was a Cardinal nest in it and they eggs of course fell to the ground. I haven't even had time to prune the dead wood or fertilize. I just got my tomatoes planted a couple days ago and seed packets still sitting on the counter top but been side tracked with sheep, a new German Shepard pup and just trying to keep on top of everything with hubby gone working out of state typically 5 days a week. Nice not having to cook supper for him every night but getting behind on yard work, and random household demands, etc.

As usual my life has been crazy busy. I've gotten into sheep and have a ram and a ewe, plus a buck goat kid...all small breeds.
I plan to have a trio of sheep and the goat will be castrated and a companion for the ram when we have to separate him from the ewes.
The breed is called Southdown Babydolls. They stay quite small and I think they're adorable.
My ewe is only half Babydoll (brown lamb with white marking in the pics)
but we drove to northern Kentucky last weekend and got a purebred registered ram lamb.
OH how I love Kentucky! Northern Kentucky isn't mountainous but beautiful rolling countryside that looks like England.
I'm going back there next year to get a purebred Babydoll white ewe lamb.
Still have the geese but cut back from 6 breeding trios to 4 to make room for the sheep.
My ewe and goat were bottle fed so very tame and friendly. The grand kids love them.

So here's some pics....(still have to edit 2014 spring flower pics)









Babydoll Sheep in wool (not mine)


Goslings

P.S. Oddly enough I have some Gladiolas coming up from bulbs I planted last year!
Here we had the worst winter in recent history and the Glads survived it?
I thought they were tender here in Z5.

Mosquitoes are HORRID this year!
Rose Chafers light (so far/fingers crossed)

Oh yeah, Vicky has pictures! You sure sound busy and all the new animal acquisitions sound sweet. Well, the photos sure show the Southdown Babydolls looking sweet! But my favorite shot is the last one!

I agree with Sue - what a cute gosling; he looks to have a high opinion of himself!

Vicky, what fun! I want to know more about those Babydolls! I'm following you on Pinterest and noticed the photos there. Would labrador retrievers do well with the sheep? You puppy is going to be HUGE!
Our winter was also extreme, but I have some zone 7 plants that survived. Some of the salvia, for example. What is the factor besides temperature? Some of my most sturdy plants suffered, and ones I thought tender did not. We didn't have snow cover, so that's not it. We even lost a big old pecan tree that appeared healthy last fall.
Kentucky is beautiful. My husband worked in Louisville for 4 months a few years ago and I loved visiting there. We talked about relocating to that area. It was sooo green, and the trees were just enormous. We can't grow beech here so I took many pictures of the weeping beech in that area. They were monsters!

Vicki - We've missed you! I know I have! that you were able to unbury yourself from all the snow from this winter.

Mini bed is blooming pretty nicely now, if everyone's so tiny..



Lyn - Here's what some of my other May Night salvias look like (the picture of them with the False Indigo..)



You can see my front yard is still looking pretty pathetic. I have no idea how many roses I lost.. I don't want to count. The back yard looks way worse.

Toni ...

Those plants look great ! I checked all of them and it appears that they are deer resistant. I just have to find out if my deer agree. So far, they have eaten every deer resistant plant I have put out in deer territory. I think that's because they are "town deer" and don't know any better. No self-respecting deer would even think of eating lamb's ear. Geesh !

Thanks for the photo, Toni. I really like that 'May Night'.

Smiles,
Lyn

May Night Salvia with Russian Sage, nepeta, and caryopteris and maybe lambs' ear is a harmonious, calming blend. They are xeric and our deer leave them alone. There is a soft yellow coreopsis that looks good with that mix--Moonlight- or Creme Brulee would work too.
Toni I am amazed at how quickly your flowers get going. It wasn't that long ago you had snow, and look at those salvia!
My salvia are just starting to bloom, and my warm season started long ago.
This is a banner year for clematis. They are loving the rain, I guess! Ones I had written off are growing and blossoming .
Maybe today I will figure out how to post faster from my new phone. The new tablet I ordered was defective so I'm still waiting on that. I want to post photos because everything looks so lush right now! Come August, I'll want to look back so I don't give up.

Here's how the salvias look from the "back" (facing the street) in the front yard.



Cindi - They know they have a short season here, so they practically start blooming before they get leaves. I have blooms or buds on about 1/2 of my roses.. and some of them are only like 8-10" tall. I'm going to have a very short season this year I'm betting. Since we're getting the moisture like we did back in '07, I'm betting that we'll get the snows we did that year. This is what my front yard looked like in either Dec '07 or January '08.

Thank you to all who responded.

Cindi, I selected Babydolls for their unique looks and because of their small size.
Reportedly they are generally docile and easy to handle.
My little ram lamb was raised by his mother yet after only 1 week here
he has calmed down considerably. I find them rather comical looking.
To me they look like a Star Wars Ewoks and their wide jaw makes them have a permanent smilie face.
Just do a web search for the Southdown Babydoll clubs and registries for more info.
Theres a group for them and also Miniature Sheep on Facebook as well.


I have NO clue why Glad bulbs survived our horrific winter!

Spoke too soon on the Rose Chafers....its a toasty 84 here today and they're coming out of the woodwork.
Got 10 hours of gardening done this weekend,. The cool temps and Mosquitoes in hiding made it bearable.
Back to the heat this week. Lots of things blooming!

Cindi, here's some links to the FB groups.

https://www.facebook.com/group...

https://www.facebook.com/group...

and this is the FB page of the breeder I got my ram from.

https://www.facebook.com/babyd...

I love that Salvia! I have some as well.
Its almost electric purple in person!
Some of my perennial Salvia's smell like cat piss.