Good job on posting multiples. I agree, I had to give up at 1:30 and I was working in the shade.

Your no=name could be Rouge Cardinal or Earnest Markham. Love the Princess Diana iris - I thought I had gotten through the season where everyone posts gorgeous pictures of iris that I cannot grow. Nope, they're still at it so I will go back to sulking.

Brooke

Beautiful Pics Chris!
My Iris are all gone now! Love Princess Diana! and Two-Sided Coin! Kiss of Kisses was new to bloom for me this year! Daylilies soon! : )
Nancy

Gosh, all these Iris pictures make me jealous. I have 2 or 3 on the west side of the house, barely surviving. Maybe I will move them to a better location, this fall/winter. Then again, I will probably forget by then.

I packed it in about 9:30 because of the heat and spent most of the rest of the day in the house. I really feel for those further north who are having the heat. At least I had some beautiful days earlier, so I have no complaint. July, August and a lot of June are my least favorite months.

Royce and Brooke -- For what it's worth, I never could grow irises before, either. Then I read that irises really flourish in nasty dirt where other flowers can't survive. So, figuring I had nothing to lose since irises are so inexpensive, I planted about 25 last August in what used to be my gravel driveway, covered with maybe two inches of topsoil. They overwintered well (no mulch) and about 90% of them bloomed for me, and the rest multiplied but didn't bloom. Of the three that went into my good dirt, one died and the other two failed to bloom.

Hence my new philosophy: The daylilies get the good dirt, and the irises get the gravel.

sulk and pout....That brooke. well, she is right about the no name clematis, it could be ernest markham. the pictures are all lovely, Chris. Especially the Iris....Ellie

Thanks, Ellie. The no-name is planted right next to an Ernest Markham and they are VERY close in color, but the anthers on the no-name are black and yellow, where Ernest's are just yellow.

It's one of those that I'll know when I hear it . . .

The other clematis I have in that color range is Sunset - sitting in here I don't know the anther color - heck I can barely remember where it is planted.

OK, now I know the secret to iris - I made the mistake and actually put them in decent soil, which gives me the prettiest foliage, MASSIVE foliage, with a puny three scapes on it. Too much garden space for too little show - pick axe, pry bar and over the fence it went. If I want foliage and no flowers, I love ornamental grass.

Brooke

My irises like the leaner soil, too. I've got NICE bloom this year, although the heat is sure to shorten the bloom season if it lasts. It's 95 in the shade up here. I've had to dash around each morning and evening checking on seedlings, and watering anything that looks droopy and pathetic. I use the water from the kids' little pool when they're done with it to water things.

A couple of my daylily seedlings are getting more robust every day, and a few others are limping along. I need to fertilize them. I'm hoping they all get a good growing season, and maybe even produce some blooms next year. I'm excited to dab some pollen from my other daylilies later this season.

Laurel

Very nice pictures! I'll make a guess at your clematis...how about Niobe? Although, having said that...I just went and looked at mine and didn't see any black anthers...sorry.

Maybe you can spot it on the Chalk Hill site.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chalk HIll Clematis

SO KATIE....How was MECCA? We want to know! Pictures?

My asiatics started blooming....This one has SHOCK in the name....When the catalogs start coming this fall, hopefully the name will come back to me.
Nancy
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Hello Nancy: I didn't go to Mecca...I did go, however, to the Chelsea Flower Show in London...and it was utterly fabulous! I have a 1 gig (did I say that right?) memory card in my camera and it didn't run out! Soon, I will download (upload?) all these images and sort through them. I tried to take pictures of everything!

The most beautiful flowers...however, they're not into daylilies like we are...at all! Just wait until it hits them.

Bearded Iris were a big thing with them this year...I guess they're new there??! And the roses...oh my. There was a gorgeous display of columbines...and I was so taken with them...the "states" collection, named after US states! Lol! Guess where they're from!

I bought lots of seeds, packaged seeds from a commerical seeds company (Suttons) at the Chelsea show, but it turned out to be foolish. I was not allowed to keep any at customs. Sigh. I was under the mistaken impression that packaged seeds were allowed...they weren't collected in the wild, aren't on the invasive list(s) and have no insects or diseases...hard lesson.

One thing that was different...at USA Flowers Shows, there are usually speakers and/or lectures you can attend. That wasn't the case there. Just lots and lots of beautiful flowers, vendors, and displays. Oh yes. And rain. Lol! Every day we were in London it rained! And it was NOT hot! We wore jackets everywhere.

Didn't mean to take over your thread, Chris!

Well where in my head did I get it you were going to Mecca? Oh well...LONDON! Never been, probably never will but I have a friend who went and brought back some FABULOUS pictures! The furthest I wanna go is HAWAII! LOL! I'm anxious now to read about your trip and see your photos!
Sounds like you had fun, spite the rain!
Nancy

Chris,

I have 'General Sikorski,' too - it's my favorite clematis so far. I've got it in a difficult partly shaded spot, and it's HUGE this year (its third). I had to run bamboo poles and twine to extend their growing space above their chain-link fence location. They're 8 feet already and heading for the sky. They're growing beside a peachy-orange honeysuckle - that ought to be an interesting combination if they bloom at the same time.

Laurel

Laurel, that's what I'm hoping for out of General Sikorski, since it's going on a new arbor.

Still one of my favorites is good old Henryi -- never noticed until this year the band of green on white when it's a new bloom, but I really like it. Plus the bloom is huge, and you gotta love that.

HENRYI
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Maximus,

I've also got a massive 'Henryi' on a terribly undersized trellis on my light post in the front yard (I planted it years ago, when I had NO IDEA how big clematis can get). Every year I chop it back drastically, and it LOVES the brutal treatment. It's got a genuine trunk on it now, several inches thick at the base. If I gave it an 8 foot trellis, I'm sure it would be to the top every year; as it is, it looks like a large shrub in leaf and bloom (with a light sticking out the top. . . .). I've got it planted behind some irises ('Superstition' and a NOID TB iris with white standards and falls midnight purple with white edges). I look forward to it blooming every year; it just started for this year.

Laurel