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.