Haha--thanks, Amy! And of course, NOW I see where the place is to start a thread! Let's see. . . There are so many flowers to learn about and to know about. I keep coming across new ones I'd like to try here. What are you all growing this year?

Besides all the usual suspect or ones I've already got going (marigolds, zinnias, 4 o'clocks, bee balm, verbena bonariensis, echinacea, nicotiana, gaillardia, hollyhock zebrina, coral honeysuckle, snapdragons, ruellia, lantana, iris, jonquils, ammis, sages, all the herbs, daisies, and probably several things I'm not remembering), I'm going to try these this year:

Cypress Vine

Bonfire Salvia

Eternity Improved Celosia (looked like dragon's breath to me)

Columbine

sweet woodruff

Didiscus

Euphorbia

Stock

Gayfeathers

Red corn poppies

(I haven't hit the order button on some of the above yet. . . waiting)

Have any of you grown stock? Any luck with it in OK? What about Didiscus--I'd never heard of it. Pretty flower. And the crossandra. I'd not heard of it, either.

I love columbine, and may have some for SF if you want. Depends kn if I get them planted, or if last year's come back I can dig up a few.

What kind of sunlight did you have yours in, Jen?

I have no experience with any, though I bought a liatris plant last year that didn't survive my neglect. Here's a link. https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/flowers/liatris/liatris-blazing-star.htm

OH NOOOOO! Disaster strikes! I had some of those in two separate carts. Just went to hit "order," and then I remembered I cancelled my debit card this morning! Had two separate unauthorized charges in the past 3 days. GDW thought it was much funnier than I did. That's okay. I can wait a week.

Amy, I grew liatris in MN; it did fine up there. I bet it will do fine here, too. If I can grow it. :) I'm wanting the Columbine and sweet woodruff for out front where it's mostly shady. And I'm planting several things specifically for containers this year.

You posted while I was typing, Dawn. Thank you so much for your input. Gotta go look at the previous flower thread again now.

Friends of mine have cypress vine, and though it reseeded in a few different places in their yard, nothing like Grandpa Ott's purple morning glories, so it should be manageable. Celosia--I can't even wrap my head around the idea that it's invasive! Well, guess there are worse things to have as invasive, eh?

Ooooo, excited about didiscus! I've not seen QAL near us, which is good. It's all along the main road. And appreciated your take on stock. I will remove it from my order--I tried phlox a couple years ago and wasn't happy with it, either.

Columbine don't like heat, so mine are on the east where they get shade most of the afternoon. Last year they bloomed until mid June.

They might do really well where I'm wanting to put them, then, Jen. Previously there were pink peonies all across that bed. But they were dying because it's so heavily shaded, so I dug almost all of them up and re-homed them (to Eileen and Larry.) I'll be excited to try the columbines. I put in forget-me-nots and transplanted a bunch of jonquils to that bed last year and see they're all growing nicely. I'll add sweet woodruff, snow on the mountain, and the columbines this year.

Nancy, I hate when that happens. I usually use one specific credit card to order online, so that I just have to keep track of the charges on that 1 card. Well, right after Christmas, unauthorized charges popped up on mine, and we promptly cancelled that card, which certainly did put a halt to seed ordering until the replacement card came. It wasn't even that I needed to order anything at that time but I resented having to cancel the card because of someone else's fraud.

Cypress vine reseeds much more in my garden than Grandpa Ott's, for what it is worth. Grandpa Ott's MGs reseed in the general area where I have grown them. Cypress vines reseed everywhere, including many places where I've never grown them. I blame birds for spreading their small seeds everywhere. While harvester ants will gather up and carry many kinds of plant seeds (from weeds or whatever else they can find) back to their beds, for some reason it doesn't seem like they gather up and carry away the seeds of MGs, cypress vines, cardinal climber vines or bindweed, which would be very helpful....if only they would do it. Too bad we cannot train the harvest ants to harvest all those unwanted seeds.

Some of the native columbines do really well in our climate. I always see those at the botanical garden in Fort Worth and in certain commercial areas that use a lot of native landscaping. They generally do play out before the heat gets to the insanity level....like they know it is coming and need to hurry up and finish blooming. Hinckley's Columbine is the native Texas one I see most often and it performs better in the southern plains region than columbines native to other areas. It is fairly long-lasting (for a cool-season flower) and often is in bloom at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens in May when the weather there is already pretty hot---like, upper 80s through sometimes mid-90s in hot years. Here is some info on it: Texas Columbine

We have a shady spot near the house, on its north side between the house and the woodland that has too much shade for most grasses so I sowed a shady wildflower mix there and had beautiful forget-me-nots and other blooming flowers everywhere, until a man with a lawn mower mindlessly mowed them all down. Apparently it had not occurred to him that perhaps I had planted those there on purpose to cover the mostly bare soil. This is why I cannot have nice things outside the fenced garden. They just aren't safe from all the wild things, the chickens and the man with a mower.

Dawn

Nancy, do you have paypal? I got it years ago when I had an obsession with Ebay. I use it when buying seeds if it's an option. I feel safer, even if I'm not.

Dawn, men with lawnmowers and weed eaters, what ya gonna do? At least I've broken him of round up, which he only used on poison ivy, but that comes in from the neighbors yard, so round up is ineffective.

Meanwhile, my question is this: is there a flower seed that looks like red/brown corn? The dog left these seeds in front of my chair. I have no idea where they came from. I grew strawberry popcorn in 2014 (?), last time I grew corn. I didn't find any chewed up seed packets (she doesn't eat them, she just delights in ripping things up. She did have a couple of baggies, which I assumed came from counter surfing. I don't remember if I saved seed from that popcorn. I don't know which is worse, a man with a lawn mower or a dog who can make herself almost as tall as me. They will both eat your steaks.

They will both eat your steaks. = Nancy

ha

She's kinda funny, isn't she?

Dawn--your description of the cypress vine is what happens in my friends' yard, exactly. The cypress vines are just here and there, scattered around their yard. Well. . . . hope I'm not sorry, but they're so pretty! :) And yes, for the most part, my purple morning glories pretty much stay where they were planted.

I think it's odd that Honey likes tearing seed packets apart. Doofus dog. Men with mowers! Maybe it's a good thing I'm the mower. (He has killed a couple things with the whipper snipper.)

I have a herd of cannas at the back of my yard. If I can think of something to put there instead (that will actually look lovely and tall and will bloom well. . . . hmmm. I may have to try a tatarian aster back there. . . well someone can have the entire herd of red cannas. They just don't get enough sun back there to bloom. Maybe 2-3 skimpy little blooms each year. They're not a bad-looking landscape plant, but seems like quite a waste of a good canna.

Thx for the columbine link, Dawn. And speaking of forget-me-nots, I think they are a sorely underrated flower! Such a beautiful shade of blue. I think I have some cynoglossum somewhere out in the yard, too. Guess I better start some more since I don't recall seeing them.

Oh I'm sorry, Amy. I attributed Nancy instead of you. So sorry about that. I got a good laugh at that comment tho.

Ha ha Bon, it happened about a year ago. DH had steaks on the counter to grill. Left briefly and returned to only one steak. We went to Logans steakhouse that night.

Amy, I am not sure about what sort of seeds the dog dragged home. Did y'all happen to have any Indian Corn as part of your autumn decorations? That's all I can think of. Anything else with seeds that color, I think you'd already recognize. What do sumac seeds look like when they are taken off the seedhead? We still have those on sumac plants here, but I've never harvested a seedhead to see what suman seeds look like.

I agree about men with mowers, weedeaters and Round-up. Oh, as well as chain saws and lopping shears. We can try to keep them out of our gardens, but there is only so much we can do.

Honey reminds me of Jet. He tore into and shredded anything in a package. He didn't care what it was---all packaged items were fair game. He finally settled down around the time he made it to 5 or 6 years of age.

Nancy, If you are sure that you could keep Titan out of the shady area (the simplest way to protect him would be to cut the flower heads off the plants after bloom has finished but before the prickly seed capsules split open), then Castor Bean plants, especially the red and purple ones, would be fine in the shade. Their foliage is attractive all the time, and for me, they do bloom in the shade, though fairly late in the summer. I also have had some success with Roselle in dapple shade or morning sun/afternoon shade. The roselle doesn't produce any flowers until autumn because it is a long-day plant, but mine produced tons of blooms even in fairly shady spots.

I remember the Honey steak disaster. We are really careful when we put steaks or any meat out on the counter here because Jersey is smart and she might decide to help herself. She's never done it yet, but that doesn't mean she won't. She certainly smells the meat and begs for it, and I'm not sure she'd behave herself if we weren't right there in the same room with her.

Dawn

Dawn, Titan knows to stay out of the beds and is super good about it. Tom and Jerry don't bother me. But I'm not sure about the Dude. Really, though, so many of the plants we grow ARE poisonous, when one stops to think about it. I tried them last year; they were doomed, speaking of men with mowers, weedeaters and Roundup. They got off to a rough start and when it got hot, they didn't want to grow. GDW obliterated two of them with the weedeater, so I mowed the other two down, as well. Maybe I'll try again this year; still have plenty of seeds.

AH! I have roselle seeds, and forgot all about them last year. I'll try them this year!

Garry has been having a good time laughing at my having no debit card. (We don't use our credit cards unless for trips or large expenses.) We stopped at Walmart on way home from church today because I have to have 3 oz cups. They didn't HAVE them! Not paper ones. GRRR. I asked him pretty please if he'd buy them from me on Amazon. He hemmed and hawed and we laughed. Then he said, "You know I'm just kidding you. Go ahead and order your seeds, too." I said, "Okay, they'll come to $30-32." He said, "WHOOOOAAAA!!! $32??????

I get my cups at Sam's. Next time you need them let me know, I'll get them for you. I think I have enough for a couple of years.

I bought some sumac seeds, but there were only 4 in the package, so those seeds weren't that. I suppose it's possible I saved some popcorn seeds and they fell out of my drawers. Or, I'd say she brought them in from the bird feeder, but there were a dozen or more, and it's not like she has pockets!

Nancy, FWIW, I've had good luck with Columbians on the north side of our home. I'll try to remember to save seed for you this year.

Carol

Thank you, Carol!!

I bought cups at CostCo yesterday for the next round of potting up. I got 18 oz. red Solo Cups. I don't remember how many were in the package, but it was huge. I had every other size cup in the garden shed from 3 oz. to 32 oz. but none of the mid-range size of 18 or 20 oz., so now I have those too.

I avoided looking at all the bags of bulbs and bare root plants at Sam's Club, CostCo, Lowe's and Home Depot while we were out. If I had stopped and looked at them, I would have bought some, so I wouldn't let myself stop and look. It still is just too cold, wet and icky and I don't want to have bags of bulbs, corms or tubers piling up all over the place. CostCo had bare root fruit trees and their full range of garden supplies in stock and so did Sam's, so I just had to avert my eyes and pretend I wasn't interested in them.