Wonder what insect that is on your Lyda Rose? Soldier bug?
Anyhow, great lookin blooms Boxofrox!

Hurrrray, Abraham D'Arby! First bloom in the season and here he is, Making His Grand Entry! with many more Encores to come!!!!

Clematis shines beautiful like the Moon in a forest of greenery...

Boxo this year I had a very pathetic showing of my rhody bush because it got mad at me after I pruned it last year after its flowering. Looks like rhodies hate! being pruned! and you are always King of the Rhodies! and have so many colored variations of it...I can't even get one of mine to "smile" for me. Instead I get a sulky rhody, haha!

I just love your Hansa, and am looking forward to its fall hips at the end of 2011...

Lyda Rose as delicate and graceful as ever!

And Joseph's Coat is making such a colorful showing as well.

Whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo!

lol, Boxo, I emailed to Jim complaining that he beat me to your thread!!! I was so busy naming all your plants, that he snuck in ahead of me...

I complained that "I could swear that I saw his thread FIRST, AND YOU STILL BEAT ME TO IT!!!

Stalker has LOST HER EDGE, LOL!"

Nice pictures. I sure like that white clematis. Does it repeat bloom, or is it just a one-shot deal?

Race with you, won he has. Lost your edge have you, hmmmmm.

Rhodies and azaleas as a general rule like part sun, lots of acidity, and good drainage. They seemingly loathe anything concrete or brick because it leaches alkalinity. I like them because I am able to site them by color and bloom time and they go from late Feb/early March thru June and get me to the roses/peonies/clematis which bloom thru all the hydrangeas/dahlias and the like till frost.

bustopher, that white pup is so generous and blooms for so long that I'm not recalling a re-bloom. This is only the second year and last year the stars were the two on either side of it that compliment Hot Cocoa and White Eden.

Yeah, I was hoppin' jealous. Jim says it's because he is faaast and efficient with his praise, and I'm one Blabbermouth which is why I got Beat! but hey, one just can't help bringing fountains of praise for your DDG garden!!! :D

Hugs and thank you, Boxo, for all that good learnin'. Yiiiikes!! First of all my Rhodies only last TWO WEEEEEEKS! gyaaaa! I always thought Rhodies only bloomed for that short of a time until I read how badly I messed up mine. Uggggh, my rhody is in full shade, there's a gutter drain pipe about 2' away, it's by the house foundations (concrete) and there is brick surrounding my Penny Lane Climber which is next to that Rhody. Next to the Rhody is a miniature Mountain Laurel... Sigh! I am soooo hopeless. Well, looks like I have to reverse all that alkaline by adding coffee grinds to help acidify that soil! Ironically, last night I started doing that to jumpstart Penny Lane, not knowing I was also doing the rhody a favor. Must be your angel influence trying to give me an ESP hint!

With all my mistakes, it's little wonder why my garden is so ugly and lumpy... P.S. Boxo, the neighbors are gonna DIE WHEN THEY SEE MY NEWLY PRUNED BUSHES. This morning they got cut down by the lawn person and all the dead wood and dead foliage is now completely visible whereas it was hidden before. WHAT A HIDEOUS, UNSIGHTLY MESS!!!! I'm gonna be the EYESORE OF THE ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD. There is also a gap between three barberries where there will be a future 2012 Rugosa planted there....
The formerly green, now deadish, bushes in the back take a long time to heal up, unfortunately, unlike the brown, deadish looking barberry, lol! Lawn person says barberries fluff up fast.

Jim's email made me realize, Boxo, that I wasn't clear about what happened to my bushes...Cornelia and my roses are fine, it's just the evergreens and barberry at the front of my youse....

Boxo here is the before photo which has cute little E in it, but the wire mesh fence would mess up your beautiful, gorgeous thread so I enclosed it as a separate tab window so that my image can be viewed without jumping viewers away from your garden.

All the nice purples of the barberry and the green evergreen bushes no longer exist. When a bush is so severely overgrown as mine was, the branches below die. Well only the very tops of the evergreens are green but so much of the top was cut that the remaining 4/5ths of the bushes look "dead". The entire purple of the barberry is nothing but brown and dried up twigs with just a bare sprinkling of purple. Sadly my lawn person was not able to get to my trees and bushes sooner. I had requested for the pruning way early in March but it never got done, and now things will take forever to regrow, plus this blazing heat is gonna stress out the plants as well :( :( :(

I am freaking out about what the neighbors will say....

All gorgeous!!! I adore your Abe and your white clematis. I have an Abe too (survived in the garage - yeah!!). I absolutely love this rose. Yours is awesome!!

Thanks for letting us into your garden!!
Carol

I have 3 of them on a cyclone fence with a Dark Lady and an LD Braithwaite between them and they pump out so many blooms that I'd have to say he is my overall favorite for sure. Not a great cut flower but so elegant and awesome fragrance. When I walk through that section of the garden and he is blooming, it's like heaven :-)

Not a great cut flower??? what in the heck??? Boxo, A.D. SMILES HUGELY AND SO WONDERFULLY IN YOUR BOUQUETS. The bouquets truly shine when A.D. is there! My favorite bouquet of yours is your Momma's bouquet on the patio railing (the clear glass vase, remember that one?) cuz it's packed with A.D.! He is Heaven both in the garden and in the Bow-quet! Sits at the Gate like St. Peter, lol! ;-)beckoning everyone to come and smell the fragrance and ENJOY!

Calm down my enraged young midwestern beauty, the reference was simply about stay power ;-)

While I love his presence within the bouquet, he loses his luster much faster than most of his vase mates. Having said that, his fragrance more than compensates.

Boxofrox writes: "Calm down my enraged young midwestern beauty, the reference was simply about stay power" ;-)

LOL...LOL, that was a good one Boxofrox...lol

Thanks Jim, laughter is the best medicine don't you think ? I had to slow her down, it was just exactly like my wild slug warning to you......only different VBEG

Yeeeks, now you got me BLUSHING TO THE MAX. Boxo and Jim, yeah that was a pretty hilarious VBEG. My cheeks are probably as flushed as a William Shakespeare2000, hahaha!

Thank goodness I can hide behind a computer screen while typing, hehehe!

About vase life, I can imagine all the fragrance wafting from those GORGEOUS AD BLOOMS! :D :D :D Speaking of which, I'm eagerly waiting for the Generation Xtra Gorgeous New AD flush! Let's see it's June 11, so I'm thinking surely by 5 days it should be starting up! I was doing a countdown that last year. The reason why is because the absolutely stunning beautiful June bouquet packed with ADs. But AD last year had sent previous flushes I think at least once, at the minimum beforehand....So I think this year you had ultra crazy weather? I remember Momma's Bouquet was in May 2009, but that was 2009...So I do have certain dates in mind remembering back on all the beautiful AD bouquets...I'm getting ready for my next set of whoo-hoos, whoo-hoos!

Your timing is impeccable, weather permitting. There are at least 100 buds on the 3 Abes and another 20 or so on Dark Lady and LDB. I would say we might be 3 days for a dozen or more. White Eden and that blue clematis if you remember from last year is on the verge and Royal Gold (the yellow climber) and Ginger Syllabus aren't far behind. The first bud on that two toned Chinese peony is half opened and that thing I'm thinking is going to be awesome this year. So anyways, it's ready set, and soon to explode around these parts.......... These are shots from todays menu..........
.

Magic mushroom lights with ajuga spires, red weigela bells, and tall peony stalks

Albino pompoms on the vine

Fresh fricaseed calico feline

Dinner plate size clematis

Mixed textured greens

And for dessert............

Darbyshire pudding

{{gwi:1250290}}

Flutterbye flambay

Creme de Lyda

A little helping of Livin Easy

Topped with the best of the season so far... the Hansa group

Bwahahaha, Boxo, the Stalker just needs to do her midnight-1:00 a.m. STALK, BWAHAHAHAHA! so that she can wiggle to the first in line VBEG :D Hint, hint, hint!

I love it!!! Darbyshire pudding, whoo-hoo, what a yummy serving, yum, yum, yum! I feel like I'm experiencing Cozy Christmas in England with that D'Arby! And yeah, serve me more helpings of the Dinnerplate Clematis, and strawberries and cream Lyda is putting on such a pretty show...

On the other hand I had to giggle at the mushroom lamps because they showed so much humor when they are stacked against the ajuga. With the verticals of the ajuga and the peony stems, the mushrooms look like jolly big mushrooms.

Oh, my goodness the beautiful kitty has grown very plump! It must have eaten tons of too many goodies at your house, lol! I bet the Kitty has been living in the Lap of Luxury and has been tailing the Momma. What she needs is a herding Border Collie to keep her sleek...Also the compositional shot of the Rhodies with the Kitty is a brilliant photographic angle.

Wow, that has got to be the most glorious tangerine color of Livin' Easy. Beautiful, Boxo!!!! And Woooowwww, the Hansa is exploding like fireworks!

100 Abe blooms, 100 Abe blooms whoooo-hooo! whoo-hooo! I'm gonna go crazy with that! So now all we have to do is to wait for Hot Cocoa next. :D

I am loving "the Menu" to a tee, and for the upcoming "Chef's Special", with D'Arby spectaculaire....wow, just around the corner I can't waaaaaaait!

Wow! Some great added pics there Boxofrox!
Love the mushrooms and great kitty shot...lol

I can't imagine having that many blooms of Abe (or any rose for that matter). Wow!!

Your Living Easy is out of this world gorgeous. Wow!!!!

That cat is so regal looking like a striped tiger. Beauty!

I really like your white clematis. I want that one!!!

Anyway that was amazing!!!!

Carol

Such deep colors! I love your close ups!

KG, you can stalk me anytime, night or day....I'm an equal houred stalkee ;-)

Jimbob, my youngest niece gifted me those and they are solar lights.

Carol, I don't deserve Abe's bounty. He has had virtually no fertilizer nor spray for two years and he just keeps chugging and blooming like crazy. You CANNOT have that white clem, she is ALL mine but thanks for liking her :-)

Thanks seil, I'm just a point and clicker with a cheap little Canon SD200

whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo! hehe, I always save the BEST for my late night prowlings and re-stalking, LOL! Boxo that is cool! I had no idea those were solar lights! Hehe, if Abraham D'Arby can do so magnificently without any spraying, if ever Crepuscule or Compassion die on me, then I will have to get "in-honor-of-Boxo Double Delightful D'Arby" once I've learned how to be a better gardener!!!! I once told someone else way early in Spring (was it Carol?? Bustopher???) that it would be too much of a Killer Heartbreak if I lost a D'Arby. It would be like killing my sport-fragranced Gemini all over again. No way I could put up with those heartaches again! Certain roses just aren't "replaceable". To this day it still tears me up about losing my Gemini, and the same would be for the D'Arby.

You are all so much fun.

Carol