Annette, so sorry to hear about your storm. That must have been a very bad one for your plants to be flatten like that. Hope your plants make a quick comeback.

Mandolls, my Kelgai Ann from you are also blooming but the color is nowhere pink as yours. It is blush, very pretty but it's a JB magnet. THe JBs attack them even before the buds are opened.

It's so easy to hate the JB's! This year, very few deer and no JB's yet...

" ... wouldn't be found til dinner time." ROTFL We would miss your posts and come looking... I finally discovered that the tiny little black specs on my peonies are thrips. Never knew. What do you do about those guys.

@kousa - "Mandolls, my Kelgai Ann from you are also blooming but the color is nowhere pink as yours. It is blush, very pretty but it's a JB magnet. THe JBs attack them even before the buds are opened. "

I noticed last year (my first year for Kelgai Ann), that the pink color varied a lot over the season and from flower to flower. I actually prefer it as a light blush simply because I have so many intense pink dahlias. It does seem to be a bug magnet - but I have seen that with any really pale dahlia. My whites always have the most insect problems. Luckily I don't have much in the way of japanese beetles, but the earwigs and slugs are going crazy this year with all of the rain we have had.

Bug Geta, by Ortho, will kill slugs, snails and earwigs but isn't to be used where pets or children could sample it and never near a clematis.

I have been putting down Sluggo Plus, which usually does the trick, but there has been so much rain that it keeps getting washed away.

This is by far my favorite bloom so far this year.

Enchantress


Also blooming now:
Hollyhill Pixie (slug nibbled)


Dana Iris


Not a great pic but nice to have so many blooms on two plants next to each other this early in the year- Irish Miss & Lucky Ducky

Wonderful, Geof! I managed not to kill my Enchantress from last year and it appears to be growing well.

What a bounty of Lucky Ducky!

I see it is time here to get out the sluggo also. Signs of nibbling on short marigolds and lower leaves on dahlias. The dahlias are opening so slowly but hopefully I will have some pictures tomorrow. Mostly red ones.

A photo of my first from a week ago
Others are showing color

Very nice, Cinda! Do you have names for them?

Sorry I don't.
They were given to me for the gardens I volunteer at 3 years ago and I save the tubers each winter this year I planted the extras at my house.

Some nice folks over on the dahlia cubit sent them to me



This one is from last year , haven't seed it yet this year
Thought it a very interesting color

Nice variegation on that one and I love the one petal, on the left, edged in red!

Looking good Cinda!

I have an interesting mutant - looks like another complete flower is going to bud from the center.

That's so interesting. Please keep taking photos so we can see what develops.

Love the depth of the color.

Please share the progress
that is a very interesting flower even if it is a mutant.

a few days later - there is a bloom with in a bloom opening.


A couple of other new blooms Crazy Legs & Pink Issa (something about pink and spikey appeals to me)

Love the bloom within a bloom! It gets more interesting with each photo.

I was all set to get current pictures but we had a huge gullywasher yesterday and then Woody was sick and I had to run off to the emergency vet with him. He is okay. Nothing physically wrong with him. The vet says animals sometimes get anxiety attacks so she prescribed something like Xanax for him. He got one and now seems better. He was acting like he was having TIA's yesterday.

Today the rain is still coming down in straight sheets. No where near as heavy as yesterday, just slow and steady. Good day to stay inside with coffee and a good book. The peonies at the ABG will be destroyed in this rain, especially yesterday.

Myrtle's Folly



Sandia Shomei

Hurray for blooms. Keep 'em coming.