Last year my first bloomers were Martagons, being somewhat new to Martagons it was quite thrilling. This year my first bloom was Kiss me Kate, fortunately early since we had the most toxic heat wave ever in early June, I had to go put curtains over the Martagons and some others since the sunflowers had not yet grown tall enough to provide shade. Many of the American hybrids and others had fried buds. Fortunately we are still having yo-yo weather, one Tuesday it was 97F, the next Tuesday there were frost warnings out.......
Last year was much much worse, yo - yo weather in the spring then just toxic heat for months, I lost half of the few orientals I had, and this year the other half are going thanks to the frying they got in early June. (not enough curtain supports)
The sunflowers have now rallied and grown thanks to the alternate weeks of decent weather we are still having-probably today is the last of that.
here is Kiss me Kate, it did not bloom last year (1st year abortion is normal in this ABnormal climate), it is a good thing it started early, by the end of bloom it was faded white due to heat.
Here is Claude Shride - behind the curtain:
Arabian Night
Brunswick:
I have more photos but have not yet sorted them, I am going to have to redo my computer space so I can edit them standing up.
The Martagons are making nice fat seed pods, I hope this continues. we will probably get a T-storm with high winds and all my sunflowers will fall over and smash the lilies flat.....
yes I AM growing trees, they are growing as fast as them can which just is NOT fast enough!
I am acually using the OT hybrids to shade my Rhododendrons while I wait for more shade - the Rhodies have NO chance in hell of ever getting taller then the OT hybrids in this climate!
PS- Anyone is welcome to email or tree mail me, I DO check my email at least once per day, I do not know when I will get back to the forum. I am busy trying to get rid of some of my other bulbs on The Blooming Auction (need more room for lilies) and have started digging the iris (it just keeps getting too big!) to sell. I am positive I will NOT be digging and selling any lilies this year, I will be extremely lucky if I can still move enough to deal with spreading out the lily seedlings. I am uncertain if I will be able to move the seedling containers into the shop before it becomes hell frozen over here. At least that part I can get help with.
