Can you post a picture of the entire border/garden? It must be an awesome sight.

Just saw this post. Gorgeous! I will add a couple of these to my wish list for the spring.

I would also love to see more of the whole garden :)

Hmm... well, I have to say that I did a very poor job tying up this year, and had a lot of flopping of five foot plants that ended up horizontal (oops). I can show some from previous years, though. Just keep in mind that most serious growers do NOT plant as tight as I do... It's hard to tend to individual plants like you should. I just really love the hedge look, and I try to maximize the number of tubers in the space used so I can sell/trade extras.

This one was published on the cover of our community business magazine.

My all-time favorite image... I plant my tall biggies along this fence line for the neighbors, and leave blooms in the box to thank the mail lady for carrying all those tuber boxes to my side porch so they don't freeze in March/April.

Love all your blooms! Favorite is gitts perfection. I've been looking for cafe au latte for a while now. In the stores not online. But I think I could go for gitts perfection too. So petty! Here is what's blooming for me right now.

But I'm guessing this won't last too many days with the cold weather we are up against next few days. They'll all die (all 3 plants:) ) that's what I got this year. Will try to dig up and store.

Nice! I love blends like that. Do you know the name?

It's a Hollyhill Starburst. I like the blends too!

Not that you have to make a choice but I like Gitt's Perfection better than Cafe au Lait. I have seen some really boring flowers come out of Cafe, although some of the color variations are special. But Gitt's Perfection is always pretty. The petals and the shape are lovely, even when, like this year for me, the pink was quite pale. (I have too much shade.)

And, Cafe has just been harder to grow for me. A friend keeps trying and sending me tubers. She's sent me some nice pictures. But I made the mistake of growing it at the back o the bed and it stopped at about 3 feet tall, produced two, small thrip infested blossoms early in the season and quit. It just sat there, all green and taunting. If I have good tubers from it, I'll try again but if I were to buy only one of these two, it would be Gitt's Perfection.

HH Starburst was great when I grew it... haven't been able to get it going the last couple years, and I've missed it. AC Lindsay is similar, but smaller and a tad darker.

I've been hearing that Cafe au Lait's stock seems to be declining, becoming shorter (3.5 typical nowadays, used to reliably grow to 5 ft) and breaking off into different shades within the same plant. The 'coffee' color is no longer reliable, which forces growers to plant many more of them to fulfill florist orders for that particular shade.

I grew two plants a few years back, got the coffee and pink shades at around four feet tall, and decided the form was too messy for me. I feel that way about many of the Pennhill varieties, too, but a lot of casual growers LOVE the sloppy petal look. It's all good. One thing going for Cafe au Lait (other then massive popularity that raises its price) is LOTS of plump tubers that store well.

Just dug and divided two plants of Lynette today... wow, what a cluster! Took a while getting it all separated, and both started with just one tuber each this spring. The first had around 20 tubers on it, second plant still gave me about 8 tubers. Made it harder that the roots had tangled between the two plants.

eczek, could you please email me at cicvacation @ aol . com? Quick question for you. :-)

cicivacation, I did e-mail you a few days ago, after your first request. Will do another now. Check spam folder?

Ha! I misspelled my name. CiCiVacation. What a goober I am. Just had thought you hadn't read that thread. You must have sent it to the wrong email, as I so brilliantly gave you the wrong email address.

Ayup. I cut and pasted so that I wouldn't spell it wrong. <s>