Viewing post #640361 by Polymerous

You are viewing a single post made by Polymerous in the thread called Odds and Ends from the South SF Bay Area.
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Jun 17, 2014 6:45 PM CST
Name: Marilyn, aka "Poly"
South San Francisco Bay Area (Zone 9b)
"The mountains are calling..."
Region: California Daylilies Irises Vegetable Grower Moon Gardener Dog Lover
Bookworm Garden Photography Birds Pollen collector Garden Procrastinator Celebrating Gardening: 2015
I am amazed that anyone can grow any kind of garden up in AK! How cold are the nights there during summer? I am really curious to know if *any* daylilies would survive up there, and if the summer nights would be warm enough for the flowers to open.

I would love to grow more roses, but the raiding deer are problematic. The only roses that can be safely grown are in the side yard, but thanks to the shade (and my incompetence with roses) they are surviving, but not necessarily thriving - with the exception of three 'Carefree Wonder' shrubs which were rescued from the property when we were landscaping it several years ago (after we bought it). Those three are the centerpieces of 3 raised beds in the side yard, where they look fantabulous in bloom. (They are a pain to deadhead though, and (in my inexpert opinion) the flowers don't seem to look good as long as those on hybrid tea roses do.)

Last year my husband finally grudgingly agreed to fence the creek banks (both to keep deer out of the garden and our new dog out of the creek), and in anticipation I bought several 'Flower Carpet' roses and a 'Lady Emma Hamilton'. Then he decided not to fence the creek banks, because it would "ruin the view" and "look ugly". (Well, yes.)

The most we could do was to put up a deer fence along part of the back hillside (where it was pretty much "out of sight, out of mind") and partly hidden by oaks. Deer still sometimes get into the garden (they got almost all of the daylily buds in the "Back 40" 3-4 weeks ago, and hit the roses and daylilies in the "Near 40" (nearer the house) last week), but the damage is not quite so bad as in the several previous years. The deer fencing helps, and maybe our dog helps.

(Our dog, however, delights in going down to the creek to both fish (muzzle in the water, going after small fish and crayfish) and hunt (the creek banks). Mud is a constant here. He also escapes out the creek to go hunt the neighbors' yards, much to their (and our) annoyance.)
Evaluating an iris seedling, hopefully for rebloom

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