Flower and Plant Favorites 2011 in my Garden

I decided to do a post revisiting a few of my favorites of 2011.

Malus Purple Prince in the Spring. You can't ask for anything
more out of a tree when it presents such beauty.

The Echinacea and Daisies were so eye catching that it was
hard to see anything else during their bloom time.

And what can be more beautiful than a Monarch Butterfly.

The Daylily Austintatious. Brightened my garden over
and over with reblooming.

My Daylily Ruby Spider is one that just caught your
eye and drew you in for closer looks.

Hydrangea QuickFire. Always lovely but the bonus
of this fall color was really a plus.

Erica Mrs Donaldson is a beautiful Heath and always looks good.

Heath Erica Yellow John is one of my favorites year round.

This lovely Heath Williamsii Ken Wilson, is another
summer bloomer that always looks good.

Of course what would be the fun without my beautiful
Yorkie Pagan in there somewhere.

My Pinus Sylvestris Glauca Nana on standard with Mums on either
side of it with some mini and small Hosta in front.

Just a few lovelies that I felt deserved a second look for 2011 and
I wait patiently for their loveliness again in 2012.

Fall Trees Malus Japanese Maple Acer Griseum

Colors on some of the trees for 2011 has been exceptional.

Acer Palmatum Fireglow. This is a dwarf Japanese Maple that should top out at 12 feet or so. It's situated in my family Hosta bed, which are all cut back now. Remains burgundy through the seasons, but thought I would include it with the Hydrangea Tar Diva in the background showing some yellow Fall color also.

Acer Griseum Paperbark Maple after planting it in late August.

Acer Griseum Paperbark Maple at the end of October. I added it for it's exfoliating bark, the red Fall color is just an added bonus. I didn't expect much Fall color this year with it being put in so recently but what a pleasant surprise it's been.

Malus Purple Prince this Fall. I love this tree and it's wonderful shape, the wonderful flowers in Spring, the beautiful Summer purplish green color and fullness, and the burgundy Fall color and then the added bonus of small purple fruits the birds eat over the Winter.

Fall Color Hydrangea CrapeMyrtle Cotinus Azalea

Hydrangea QuickFire. What a beauty this is with it's Fall colors. I have 3 of these in different areas of the yard. This one is mostly red, one is a combo of red and orange and the other is mostly orange with a little red.

Azalea Red Dwarf. I'm still surprised I have the couple of these that I do since they really like acid soil. I keep expecting them to die at some point and won't be too surprised when they do, but the Fall and Winter color is gorgeous on them.

Cotinus Golden Spirit. Just added a few months ago so I am surprised with the Fall color, but happy to see it. The yellow of the shrub added with the red is really lovely.

Crape Myrtle Centennial Spirit. The Fall colors are stunning especially with just adding this in the Spring. They are being offered here so hopefully that is because it's Winter hardy and I've provided a small micro climate with the privacy fence to keep off some of the Winter winds coming out of the northwest.

Hydrangea Quercifolia Little Honey. I added two of these a few months ago. I understand they can be difficult to get going but have them on a slope so hopefully that will do the trick and they survive. They are a yellow oakleaf selection and should set off the area I have them in if they make it.

Rose Apricot Drift Mums Daisy Ilex Blue Princess

Gardening for the year is over and as with most gardeners we wait and plan for next Spring and what it brings.

The beautiful Yorkshire Terrier Pagan dressed for Halloween stopping by the White Mums. This area looks so bare after being cut back other than a few Mums and Heuchera.

The lone bloom coming out on my Rose Apricot Drift. Since I am doing more flowering shrubs, I think I may add a few more Roses in also, if I can find some more that do not need sprayed. I am not going to do the whole spraying thing, but I also do not want to deal with horrible foliage.

I cut back the Daisies to new basal growth in mid September because I was going to be so busy and the new buds had burned up anyway. Well end of October and here is one that popped through. Weigela Dark Horse sets the background, but everything else is cut down in here, yet I have a new bud also on my Coreopsis Sunray.

Ilex Blue Princess. This poor Holly has been moved probably 6 times in a few years time and is back to I believe it's second location. It hasn't hurt it being moved, although I'm not seeing much growth, which I wouldn't expect to after all the moves. The birds like it though and already have eaten all but a few berries.

Hydrangea Limelight Vanilla Strawberry Spirea

Gardening is basically at an end for most of us. We did receive a tremendous amount of rain for a couple weeks there and I did manage to get some things transplanted and a few new shrubs planted. I am changing over to more and more shrubs and feel that is mainly what I will have at some point, other than my Hostas, Daylilies, Sedum, and Mums that I have to cut back, which is still too much. Getting to hard to deal with all of that in the fall. Will of course keep my perennials like Heuchera and Lavender that are evergreen here.

Hydrangea Limelight at the beginning of October. This is for those to see the amount of pink I am getting on my Limelight. I did notice this year on Limelight and Vanilla Strawberry that as it starts cooling off the blooms start turning pink. People in a colder zone may get more pink than I do. Limelight has added just a tad more pink since these photos.

Hydrangea Vanilla Strawberry keeps getting pinker. With only 3 blooms on my small one, I still have them in various stages of color so I can believe the photos I saw before purchasing were accurate and expect a lot more out of it as it matures. Vanilla Strawberry has pinked even more since these photos.

Spirea Magic Carpet. A yellow shrub that adds some red highlights in the fall.

Sedum Mr Goodbud blooms. The pink on this keeps deepening also as the weather gets cooler and cooler. I notice on this one that the pink is almost red compared to Autumn Joy and has a red tinge to it's stems. This is the second summer in my gardens and so far has stayed compact and erect as they claim, like Autumn Joy. We'll see what happens next year when I will consider it totally mature.

Times are incredibly busy for me and I don't have much time for blogging right now. Will try to catch up when things improve with my time.

Sempervivum Chrysanthemums Daylily Yarrow

Some of the things that show different colors as we go into the fall season and the late bloomers that keep on going.

The Sempervivum turning red for the fall and winter seasons with the pink Chrysanthemums showing off their lovely blooms.

The burgundy Mum is a color that I just love. Since everything is cut back here it helps draw attention to itself.

The Yarrow is back in bloom alongside the Bluemist Shrub.

Stella de Oro just keeps blooming. You can see more scapes here. I will cut it down this week since I am going to be busy for a while and don't want to be out there this winter cutting back.

Chrysanthemums Blue Mist Shrub Sept

Fall is here and the gardens are taking a lot of my time right now getting them ready for winter. I always hate this time of the year having to cut back all my beautiful flowers.

The Chrysanthemum in containers. This is a pink and white. The white is very delicate looking on this one.

More of the pink and white. This sported off my pink and it will be interesting to see if it does the same next year.

The solid pink Mum with a small Hosta in the center. Now my intentions are to leave these containers where they sit. This is on the North side of my patio so light shade most of the day and direct sun for a couple hours, but wide open completely to those NW winds which can be the hardest part about winter. I intend to find something that I don't have to move containers with. Looking ahead to that old age and not being able to. We'll see if these can come back next Spring and if they end up being what I can keep in there year long.

A little closer up of the Blue Mist shrub. Color keeps getting deeper on these as the weeks go by. I will hard prune these again in the Spring to about 6 inches to get them to fill out even fuller.

Acer Griseum Paperbark Maple Salvia

We've received some much needed rain. Not of much help when we needed it but did help before going back into the high 80's. I have started cutting back so the yard is already starting to look a little bare. Cut back all the Daylilies except Stella which insists on blooming again and a few other things. Still lots of work left, but it is showing a lot of empty space right now.

Acer Griseum, my Paperbark Maple. I love this tree. The bark exfoliates, which is where the bark peels and hangs there. Very cool looking. I really didn't intend to plant another tree out back but my family garden of Hosta will appreciate it. The Paperbark Maple only get about 25 feet high so it won't provide a lot of shade but I love the tree and wanted it. Being a smaller tree means it's slow growing also. I finally found one at a local nursery, as they can be hard to locate. I did not want to order one online since the branching is so important on these and figured I would get an ugly one.

Being a 20 gallon tree, I had to have it dug out and planted for me. My brother Craig on right came over to do the work with the help of Dave that works for him in home improvement. For you not following my brother go on by and visit at "Ohio Outdoors" blog if you have time. He doesn't have time to blog much but he'll follow back.

The May Night Salvia is blooming and giving some much needed color around here. Obviously this will need to be divided next year since it sprawled out too much.

And here is Salvia Sensation Rose also blooming. A couple others are also but those being put in this year the current blooms are very close to the ground and I just didn't feel like laying on the ground to try and get photos.

Blue Mist Shrub Knockout Rose Sedum

The first full week of September 2011. After a summer like no other that I remember. I know that we've had it easy compared to some of the Southern states. I guess I should count myself lucky that anything is blooming.

The Blue Mist shrub, which is in the Spirea family. I love the blooms on this but it just doesn't put out the blooms early enough for me. Had more in the yard and took some out. I left two in as of right now but can't say I won't change that next year if I find something else more interesting with a little earlier bloom that lasts through the fall. That's my Sambucus Black Lace in the background. I do like having shrubs filling up the yard since it sure helps reduce cleanup in the fall.

One of the Red Double Knockout Roses. Both of them survived the transplanting I did right before the heatwave. These truly are tough Roses.

Sedum Matrona. Someone on an earlier post asked to see this again as the season progressed so here are the current flower heads.

Sedum Autumn Joy. I love the flower heads of Sedum. These are just pinking up but I find them pretty before they even do and love that Sedum's grow and do great regardless of the weather. The interesting thing I notice this year was that we haven't had the usual amount of bees.

I thought both my Clematis were toast. As you can see the color is about right for toast. :) We've gotten rain for 2 days and this one has new green growth on each stem here. The other it's poor little stem burned so bad that it's on the ground and pretty much non existent now. Don't remember which one this is and wasn't worried about the name since all you see is a couple of green leaves, so my hopes are that atleast this one will come back next year. I believe that the other one is the one I wanted most. I've heard others say that theirs burned like this with only brown leaves and the stems looked dead and it came back the following year. I'm hoping for the best and that next year will be a great gardening year.

Hydrangeas Smoketree Golden Spirit Mums

September 2011 and gardening has been an experience this summer. We did finally luck out and get a drenching rain last week but immediately went back in to dry mode here and in the 90's again with 97 by Friday. They are predicting mid 70's next week, just in time for me to get my new tree planted.

A lot of people have commented about the Chrysanthemums from previous posts. First I do not pinch them back ever. I let them grow as big as they want. I've been very fortunate on the pink which I have had many years and always have the first bloom by July 1st, the others the beginning of August. My Yorkshire Terrier Pagan stopping to sniff the blooms. Why she would want to sniff a Mum is beyond me, but that's a dog for you. The Mums will have to be divided next Spring. They have gotten way too wide for the space I have allotted them in my Family Garden.

I have a few other colors that I transplanted in May right before the heatwave hit, so they are alive but not blooming yet. I believe they are in decent shape otherwise and should overwinter and bloom fine next year. I've found that you can not cut them down to the base in the fall like so many of my other perennials. When I do cut back I leave atleast 4 inches of stalks to protect them although some people leave them and do the cutting back in early spring. I also find that dividing should be done in the spring by April for the best shot of survival.

In just a few weeks you can already see the Hydrangea Vanilla Strawberry pinking up on this bloom and you can see two more blooms coming in on the left. I just have a really good feeling this is going to be a big bloomer for me when it grows up and fills in. You can see a Hydrangea Limelight behind it in this photo.

The Hydrangea Limelights are really looking beautiful in full bloom. This one is located elsewhere in the yard.

My new shrub I got last week. This is a Cotinus Coggygria Ancot common name Golden Spirit Smoketree. I love the looks of this shrub. When mature and filled in it will be mostly a golden color and some day the plumes a pinkish shade. It was hard even locating one of these and I was ready to order online when a local nursery found one and I lucked out with 30% off which was nice since it's not a cheap one to buy. I vacillated on where to put it. I wanted it in two different spots with it's golden color but really only wanted one shrub. I would have loved it in the corner of my yard where my Viburnum is since I have a Norway Weeping Spruce in front of the Viburnum and the golden shrub would have made my spruce stand out, but I went to dig up that Viburnum and hit the driest dirt possible. Well decided that I wasn't digging up something that does that well in that location and decided to put this in the other spot that really was choice for me to look at. I removed two Hydrangea Quickfire to plant this in it's new location. Relocated one Quickfire elsewhere in the yard and sent the other to my brothers.

This backline has been pretty bare this year. I dug up and moved all my Lavender because they weren't located right between all the shrubs and centered them better. Should have done this when I decided to do flowering shrubs as the backbone a couple years ago but didn't. I did lose most of the Lavender when the heatwave hit right after transplanting. I did save a few and decided to add a few other things down the backline instead of all Lavender. Those should all be coming in decently next Spring and that area looking better for me hopefully.

Pinus S Glauca Nana Ninebark Mums Daylily

I had hoped the extremely hot weather was behind us a few weeks ago with a slight cool down that came in. I mean it seemed only fair since we'd been putting up with 90's since May, but no. Not quite a week reprieve and it's back. Supposedly today is the last with a 94 and we're to be in the mid 80's tomorrow. The rain as usual missed us and stayed either North or South of me.

My Pinus Sylvestris Glauca Nana on standard. Mums on either side of it with Hosta Golden Tiara front center and minis on either side, with Hosta Pandora's Box on left and Hosta Cracker Crumbs on the right. These mini Hosta have really been interesting. You'd think with them being so small that they would have burned to pieces in the first week of over 90, but these little guys are really tough.

The Daylily Austintatious is reblooming for me. It barely quit when it decided to send up new scapes and started blooming again. It's paired up with the Girl holding a Yorkie statue. This Daylily has been nice to have in the ground this year. You don't know how much you appreciate something until you have a summer like this one. I will always keep this one now. It's come through the heat and decided that was not going to stop it from putting out the blooms.

The big and beautiful burgundy Mum. I personally love the color of this bright burgundy. It doesn't bloom as early as my Pink which is a really early bloomer, but it's well worth the wait and will continue blooming like this. You can just see one of the blooms of Salvia Sensation Rose showing in front of this in the center. Blooming again as it pretty much does through the season here with deadheading.

Two Ninebark Diablo with Coreopsis Moonbeam in between. I'm leaving room with all my flowering shrubs to spread and grow taller and wider over the next few years. For any of you that follow my blog, you know by now that Physocarpus Diablo is one of my favorite shrubs. I Have them on both sides of my yard. I have found they are a great shrub to have, the flowers are gorgeous and the foliage stays burgundy. A big winner. Of course the Coreopsis will hold it's blooms until a hard frost.

Have been involved with a small remodeling project in my bathroom with new shower faucet which meant the small remodeling afterwards. Still a few things I need to decide on for the window framing but will do that myself once I make a decision. Plus had some some odds and ends done around the property including some roofing and roof vents for the dryer venting, but I am set up for winter now after they caulked and things to make sure everything on the roof looked good to withstand another season. Always nice to get all this done and out of the way.