$100 on Annuals?! Yikes!

[shipperx]

Once, several moons ago, I was really into gardening. But as hobbies go. . . that one wore out. (I do have a few nice vestiges of it. My Don Juan roses are in full bloom, as are my wildly overgrown Cramrosi Superieur antique china tea rose and the small cabbage rose Clotilde Soupert (I love antique roses. Ignore the hell out of them and they just keep blooming.)

However, dead hobby aside, I do keep the front beds planted. My daffodils have bloomed and gone. So today, on my day off, I bought flowers for my front planters and beds. Yowza! I don't know whether plant prices have gone up or whether they were always that expensive, but I ended up walking out with $100 in plants. (And it really isn't all that many of them and they were all VERY pedestrian plants). A flat of coleus, a flat of vinca, Mexican heather, an ivy geranium, and an allamanda . (If I lived in the tropics that allamanda would be an evergreen. Around here you can plant it in early spring and it will bloom until December. I replace it every year rather than try to pamper it through winter.) I still need a mandevilla which I always plant to grow up into the evergreen akebia I have growing over the front door. Tomorrow, I have to plant the stuff, and I have a scary amount of grass that has grown up beneath the crepemyrtle out front that I'll need to clear away before planting the Mexican heather.

Comments

[timeofchange.livejournal.com]

Those annuals will get you every time, huh? I have three window boxes on the front of my house and filling them costs frighteningly close to $100. Of course, I love to cram them full. May I ask what zone you are in? Does your crepe myrtle really bloom for 95 days? Because, yowza. If that's true and it would bloom in zone 6, I want!

Also, I adore Mexican Heather. I put it in pots and it's wonderful.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I'm on the borderline of zones 7 and 8. Crepemyrtles are all over the place. The bloom time varies according to the variety and color (as does the speed with which they grow). White ones such as Natchez grow with incredible speed (a couple of years and they are ten feet tall. Some people cut them down every year so that they come back as bushes, but I really don't advise that unless you get the dwarf version. The regular versions really should be left as gigantic bushes or trimmed up to be small ornamental trees-- which is the way they're most often seen around here) They do bloom a lot. The dark hot pink/red one I have out front (whose name I forget) doesn't bloom for quite as long as the Natchez White and is a much slower grower. They do tend to bloom most all summer from somewhere around mid to late June through September according to how mild the spring is and how mild the fall is. Around here they're really sturdy plants or (light pink and white ones) even naturalized ones. (I've never seen the red or lavender versions naturalized but they are frequently planted around here). I'm not sure of its zones. I'd have to look it up.

For potted plants, I really rec the allamanda. I've kept that in a pot out front for the last three summers. They constanty bloom until the first hard freeze and are relatively drought tolerant so you don't feel forced to water it every five minutes even in the dry parts of summer.

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

No, the price of plants has gone up just like everything else. I have two garden centers in my city with one of them being 1/2 mile from my house. I spend waaay too much time there and I've noticed that they are just starting to put out a few things. Our official planting date here is May 15 so we've got another month until the soil warms up. Yesterday was the official it's not likely to snow anymore day.
I used to have quite a big collection of antique roses but my Father wanted his backyard back to grow vegetables so I gave them away to friends. I was always fond of Frau Karl Druschki and La Reine Victoria.
You're right about antique roses, ignore them and they keep coming back and have the most beautiful colors and scents.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I do love the antique roses. I've given up on trying to keep the hybrid teas, though. That's just too darn much work.

[cy-girl.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow's my big planting day. I'm glad you mentione Mexican heather because it does very well here. I have eight crepemyrtles. Do you prune them back every year? That's hotly debated amongst gardners around here. I've come down on the side of not pruning through sheer laziness. :)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I planted all morning (but I still didn't get everything planted. I spent too much time pulling grass out of the bed).

And, nope, I don't prune the crepemyrtles. I trimmed up a few low branches, but other than that, I'm still trying to make it grow up and be taller. Plus... it's laziness. Way too much trouble to prune.

[rahirah]

Mm. flowers. I need to do something about ours now...

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Also? Work. I'm all tired and achey and I think my legs may be slightly sunburned. (It was truly lovely weather today, though.)