Ok, this garden forum frequenter will meet your in the atrium, if you prefer. :) I know and grow and love a lot of plants, but will try to prune the list of favorites. Sunset 23 USDA 9 (Southern California) Don't know if any of these work for wherever you live though.

Melaleuca incana (prostrate form) That grayish "tree" cascading over the wall.

Isoplexis canariensis Unfortunately, these need to be replaced every four years or so, and they are very, very rarely available from local nurseries.

Ochna serrulata Masses of yellow flowers give way to these red sepals. Birds love to feed on the berries. That bletilla orchid growing below is another favorite.

And then there is Russelia. I grow R. 'St. Elmos Fire' in with Golden Goddess bamboo. The russelia stems are thin and almost leafless, so the result makes the bamboo appear to produce red flowers.

And Alstroemeria, and Metrosideros variegata, and Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies' and Clematis Montana var. grandiflora and, and, and....! My small garden is filled with plants I love.

I'm in zone 11a I think. Northern California. Lavender is a particular favorite for me. It grows easily in our climate. And I have some very old established hydrangeas that have found our high water table and sustain themselves with no watering despite the drought. They only require one pruning a year and provide lots of beautiful flowers, many of which I cut and bring inside.

lukki - May we ask what zone you're in, just to see if our comments might even be relevant? TIA.

I'm still working on my flowerbeds, but my Drift roses are almost indestructible in the Texas summers.

I also love my Echinacea

What zone are you in? I would suggest doing some planning in your garden to account for when things will bloom and account for the different heights (short things in front, taller things in back).

I am in WI, which is in zone 4-5. For spring/early summer flowering, I love bleeding hearts, lilacs (I have a pair of miniature lilac bushes that are fabulous in my front yard), peonies.

For later summer/fall flowering, I a hydrangea cannot be beat. They bloom for a long time and sometimes change color.

Msrose, I envy you the echinacea! Four years ago I planted 80 one gallon plants, and not a single one came up the next year. I was sick over it.

Your drift roses are very pretty! Our landscape guy keeps pushing those, but after twenty six knockouts died I am just not in the mood to keep going with attempts to colorize our surroundings.

I'm in zone 4b. My only successes have been yarrow, Russian sage, lilacs, and honey locust trees. And weeds, lots of weeds :-) I have spent so much money on zone-appropriate plants that just die despite my best efforts, I've kind of given up.

Beautiful pics, Gyr Falcon and Ms Rose!

I'm in zone 9b (Santa Rosa, CA). I had my front lawn taken out 4 years ago and had it replaced with drought-tolerant plants and trees. My favorites are English lavender, oak-leaf hydrangea (love, love, love), and butterfly bush. I am the Typhoid Mary of California poppies in my neighborhood. I planted some 3 years ago and now they are appearing in everyone's yard and up through cracks in the sidewalk.

Zone 5a- couldnt name a single favorite plant, i have favorite plants for different reasons. For example, I kind of hate Forsythia, but love that it grows like a weed, is indestructible, is always either bright green or bright yellow, is easy to hack branches off and bring into the house in the deep dark winter which quickly turn to golden spring indoors.

I don't love Hens N Chicks per se, but I love them tumbling and creeping in a rock garden.

I love the area of my yard that I am turning into a pollinator heaven. It is full of Joe Pye Weed, Monarda, Black Eyed SUsan, Monarda, Echinacea, Daisies, Yarrow and Asters. So do the birds, bees and butterflies.

I love lily of the valley, because I am born in May. I love Baptisia(Wild Indigo) because a good friend introduced me to it. I love lupine because I am a Mainer, and love tuilips because they seem so happy, I love hydrangeas because they remind me of my grandmother, I love the heady sent of lilacs.... I could go on all day. It is a good thing I have a big yard and can have little corners for everything. :)

PS It has been a long winter no wonder dreaming of my still sleeping garden makes me drool.

It's hard to have favorites as so many serve different purposes. (In zone 5.) But I guess my very favorite would be peonies, not only because they are so showy, but because of their subtle sweet fragrance. In fact, many of my favorites have fragrances which make them so special. We grow chives which have a lovely flower but are edible. Nothing like fresh chives chopped up in scrambled eggs. Yum. I have a rose of sharon planted in memory of my Mom. And the lavender has a wonderful fragrance and color year round. I love our lilacs and our lily of the valley and am frustrated every year that they bloom at the same time...would so prefer to be able to enjoy each individually. And I planted a mock orange a couple of years ago specifically for the fragrance which, unsurprisingly, smells like orange blossoms.

We moved six years ago and I still miss my spectacular limelight hydrangea from our old house. Some of the blooms were almost a foot long. I imagine that the plant is probably a monster by now. We were in zone 8a.

Oh gosh! I'm sorry I thought I had included my zone (6) in my original post. Actually I am on the border of 5b and 6a in Michigan, an hour or so north of Detroit. That said, I hope that won't deter anyone from posting, since a post for one usually helps many and I know I am not the only non gardener needing to garden. I love the pics, but will come back later to read the posts when I have unrushed time to enjoy the pictures and respond.

I forgot to mention, I do have one somewhat-sunny spot in the garden and I think I am going to start a pollinator garden there this year! The husband tried to grow veggies there but...too shady :(

Robo--your gardens are beautiful! What is the vine growing on the fence in the Hosta garden?

kswl - How did you lose so many KO's? I thought they were pretty much indestructible.

msrose - I'm in TX, too, and I somehow managed to kill my two original KOs (back in the day when they were available only in fuchsia)...can't even begin to take that one apart, frankly. They thrived the first few years, then went downhill quickly. I have assorted shrubs and bushes in the same bed, and they're all fine. Red Ribbons, however, have been amazing -- with much shame, I admit I haven't fertilized in about 3 years.

Added: many years ago, we cultivated a thriving butterfly milkweed garden for the monarchs. Space has opened up in one of our beds (read: two altheas died!), so we're planning a milkweed garden again.

I'm in Austin, and I seem to have a problem with trees staying upright and even alive. At moment, with two rains in the last week, my Flowering Plum is leaning toward the fence~it's at least 30'-35' and has been in 3 years, so not a small tree. This is the 3rd or 4th time this has happened since the tree was put in. It is anchored with huge steel stakes and heavy cord. When I push it back in place I can hear the roots tearing away from the ground. Is it the heavy caliche soil that the roots can't get thru, so are attaching themselves to the 'good' soil that was added, but that soil isn't as deep or not enough of it? Does the tree need replanting? TIA

junco - the vine is actually a privet hedge planted by the former owners. It is completely indestructible - in fact I am going to take a chainsaw to it this year to take it back down to the ground because it got overgrown and leggy at the bottom. I've heard privet can be invasive but I've had no problems with volunteers. If I could start over I would choose a boxwood hedge.

People in our neighborhood take their hedges VERY seriously -- the exact day we moved in, no word of a lie the moving truck was STILL in the driveway, our elderly neighbour came over to ask when we were going to trim the hedge! (That the former owners had let grow up 11 feet high!) I was like, "Not today."

pattycakes - when you planted the tree, did you dig out a planting hole and enrich it? I know ken over in the garden forums is not a fan of this practice because the tree roots can "get stuck" and circle in the hole full of nice soil instead of venturing out into the bad soil.

"Don't enrich soil in the planting hole unless it's terrible. If it's that bad, the entire area of the future root zone should be enriched, not just the hole. Otherwise the roots won't venture out of that nicely enriched hole. Don't fertilize for at least one full season. The plant needs to focus on root development, not top growth."

http://www.liztoffey.com/writer/planting.shtml

It was planted by a professional landscape company, and I wasn't watching. I could befinitely see that as being the problem because of the horrible caliche soil. Thanks for the link. ;)

Well, this thread has turned into a wealth of gardening information! Some of the plants I have read about, others are completely new, which is wonderful.

Gyr_falcon, your yard and plants are gorgeous. I wish I had your gardening passion, it shows in your pics. I lived in SoCal most of my life and have never seen the plant species you have (that I can remember anyways), it's really lovely.

MsRose. I too am jealous of your Echinacea, they are one of my favorite flowers. I see now that they can grow in our zone too! Beautiful roses as well. I was thinking about trying the double knockout, so I'm a bit disappionted to read kswl's and javiwa's posts about them dying.

Robo!!! You just simply rock! You're so generous with your pictures, advice and information, thank you so much. I'm feeling pretty lukki that we're in the same zones too, your gardens are so pretty! I find it very hard to believe that you are a beginner and/or a lazy gardener! Our previous owner was a landscaper by trade and ignored his own gardens, add that we are not gardeners and had a ton of inside work to do too and here we are. During her first visit, my sister told me we have bleeding heart in the back which are in shade, then my dh found some berry bushes in one bed which are very thorny, we had hostas and day lilies in the front but I'm not sure if they will grow back this year. Some daffodils and tulips are trying to come up, but a guy who cleaned our leaves for us dropped them all in the beds and the are buried. We have so much clean up to do it is overwhelming. We did transplant some forsythia bushes on the side of the house last year and they are starting to bloom. So far on my list I have red twig dogwood with a base of lemon grass set along the border of the property to help with some privacy from the road, hydrangea under the front window, a mix of blooming perennials in front of the deck and I really really want a Japanese Maple which is my favorite of trees. There is just so much to choose from. I will look into the azaleas as well. hee hee. I drive for work and have had my eyes on the yards. Lots of flowers starting to bloom, it really is so pretty.

robo - thanks for the info about not enriching the planting hole - something of course I always do.

gyr falcon - what makes your canary foxglove so rare - is it the colour? You have such interesting and unique plants. thanks for allowing me to see them.

msrose and robo = your gardens are beautiful.

Your hostas and day lilies will 100% grow back, they're almost unkillable in our climate.

This is a good time for cleanup, your bulbs probably liked having the leaves on them all winter.

my advice is to get your JMs from a good local nursery instead of home depot. they'll have more interesting varieties and may have healthier plants. A jm can be an investment.

I'm very partial to dogwoods! I would love to get a flowering one for my yard. And maybe a witch hazel.

When stuff grows up feel free to post in this thread or the garden forums to get IDs. I have an OK handle on plants in our zone.

Thanks blfenton! I am such a novice so there is still a lot of transplanting and "shovel pruning" going on!

I really love oak leaf hydrangea. It is the easiest plant to grow, gets huge fast, and has seasonal interest in spring, summer and fall.

Msrose----'that is what i thought as well! They were put in by a landscape company and guaranteed for a year. Five or six died right away and he replaced them, and the rest waited until the next season to die. They had more than adequate water, light, etc. Now when anyone says "indestructible," or "foolproof" I laugh because i know it is not true--- for my little corner. And the knockouts were in different areas spread out over twelve acres, in different soil types, so its not as a if they were all subjected to a pest or poor growing conditions. Oakley tried to warn me about them, i think hers died as well IIRC.

It's funny how "bulletproof" plants really depends on your area too. Here in NS and I think all through the NE, hostas are common as dirt and really, like, REALLY impossible to kill. Meanwhile my friend's mom in Calgary treats hers as preciously as orchids and they invariably croak.

Did I mention it's still snowing here? I had another look at garden pics from last year.

Another great hosta (but looks best in Spring and tattered by the end of summer) - Lakeside Dragonfly. I got this pic though, to show the IMO criminally underrated companion plant, phlox stolonifera creeping around on the right.

Spring pic from last year - front garden. From the tree (JM dancing peacock) you can see cushion spurge as that little yellow and green plant on the middle right - a springtime fave in NS, autumn joy sedum just below it, H, Macra aureole (yellow grass), H. Macra Beni Kaze (green grass), lady in red fern. Phlox stolonifera is creeping around the rock beside the sedum, and H. Touch of Class at 5:00 to the tree - it's a young one but will look great in about two years.

My little new garden can't compare with the beauty above but here are a couple of progress shots: my yearling palo verde in bloom and my patch of seeded buffalo grass and blue grama at three weeks

oh gosh, I killed some gorgeous hostas in the bed under the window! I am feeling really confident now! lol

I don't know if some of these will do well in zone 5 but here are some of my favorites. And I am going to try to post more than one photo at a time.

This is a Rheingold Arbovitae. Very slow growing, and a single specimen in the backyard, surrounded by echinacea, Veronica, dwarf Nandina, and some daylilies that haven't bloomed yet.

Rainbow Leucothoe that I think adds some interest. I really like these for the foliage and the droopy blooms.

A part-sun bed with oak leaf hydrangea, some late blooming azaleas, hellebores, and a part of the bottle tree you can see.

One of several Japanese Maples. This one is Inabe Shidari, a dwarf. Surrounding plants are day lilies, peonies, Sweetspire, 'Henry's Garnet', and other things in the background.

Two other Japanese Maples, hosta, and variegated dwarf boxwood. That's probably enough pics.

I just took these photos of my spring garden to send to our children in other states. This is what is going

on in my world this week. Above one ofmthe last azaleas; below, container gardening imcorporating mint, caladium, dianthus.

Below, peruvian lilies, a lurid pinky orange was only color avsilsble on garden overhaul weekend:

Above, irises have been magnificent this year because of the rain. Six hanging baskets of million bells (calabrichoa) with drip irrigation up shepherd's crooks, a little disneyfied but easy!