I am out of room so likely will not be putting in much new. Although I say that every single year and still manage to buy, dig and plant. I am waiting to see how a few things from last year did to see if I want more. I love hakonechloa and planted only one last year as a "test". I can see it survived, but survival isn't the same as thrive. If it does well, I will probably plant more. I love to do a lot of container gardens so I am still hoping that will be possible. A lot up in the air still.

I confess that I already purchased some iris from Willow Bend iris farm that won't be available for pick up until August. I bought: Fireball and Oh James.

Just looked up your plants. I LOVE Oh James! I hope that one goes gangbusters and ends up in a future swap. :-)

I wanted to get an update on your Purple Mountain Sun Daisy.

https://plantselect.org/plant/osteospermum-barberiae-var-compactum-p005s/

I was quite taken with it when you posted it but didn't have a place. I was wondering how it handles the winter? Does it die completely back and need to be cut down or is it fairly evergreen like my creeping phlox and rock roses?

Does it spread or stay in it's own mound?

Thanks!

In looking back through old posts I see it was Heidi who had the Granita Orange and Granita Raspberry ice plants. Any updated pics? Soon I will have them also!

I also placed an order for a Neil Diamond Rose from High Country Roses. Sight unseen. I asked to do a pick up after the stay at home order is lifted so will be able to see it then.

https://www.highcountryroses.com/shop/modern-roses/hybrid-teas-grandifloras/neil-diamond/

I received some Allium canadense in the mail from Prairie Moon yesterday. I've got more plants from them on their way in the next 4-6 weeks from an order I made in like January. I don't even remember all of what I ordered, but I should have a decent native plant garden started at least. Then there's the bare root milkweeds (swamp & showy) that are going gangbusters right now. Pretty incredible considering I didn't think any of them would do much of anything at all when I dug them out of the pasture back in March.

As expected my "winter sowing" is going poorly. The only things that have sprouted are some Agastache foeniculum, almost all of which have since died. If the survivors continue to survive, I should get 5-8 of them (out of three 6-cell packs!) at least but so far nothing else has popped. Patience right? We'll see...

As for the veggie garden, I will be putting in peas, pole and bush beans, 9 varieties of tomatoes, winter and summer squash, tomatillos, cucumbers, eggplant (which FINALLY sprouted), carrots and beets, maybe chard. I will plant some sweet corn in last years garden area since the herbicide I think I think is now in the soil doesn't affect grasses it's about the only thing I will be able to grow in there for the next couple years.

I've ordered two more from High Country Roses. Matt says Candy Land was encouraged by a local garden (can't remember which one) here in Denver. They say it is fabulous so I'm going to give it a try.

https://www.highcountryroses.com/shop/modern-roses/climbers-ramblers/candy-land/

Also ordered one Matt has no experience with: Souvenir De St. Anne's. I want something with a strong scent that does well in the shade and has white flowers. Hopefully this is it. I found it on their shade tolerant rose list.

https://www.highcountryroses.com/shop/old-garden-roses/bourbon-roses/souvenir-de-st-anne-s/

It snowed about a foot here last night so I bought another rose:

https://www.highcountryroses.com/shop/special-collections/easy-to-love/easy-on-the-eyes-tm/

Thats pretty, Mmmm! My grandmother loved roses, and I've always meant to go by her and my grandpa's old house and take cuttings of the ones she planted (if they haven't been removed). I have to admit, roses aren't my personal favorite, but I'd like to have one of her somewhere.

I brought the winter sown trays inside for this snow storm. They got so waterlogged from earlier in the week that I really want them to dry out a bit before MORE seedlings die. I think this is my #1 problem with winter sowing, we get so much moisture at a time from these heavy spring snows it drowns most of my seedlings. I looked this morning and there's a couple butterfly weed poking up, they will die for sure if the cells don't dry out some (and soon!).

Zach, if you ever do get cuttings I would love to see the resulting plants.

Good idea to bring stuff in. This is a heavy snow storm. My husband is out now whacking snow from the trees.

I got a photo of my phlox yesterday in case the storm affects the flowers.

The last one didn't which really surprised me with how cold it was. It did however kill off all my baby asparagus (should have cut them and eaten them) and damage some of the leaves on the iris. The asparagus will be fine because it is a huge patch and the ones that got affected were just the first spears which we normally eat anyways. The iris will also be fine as it is just a couple of leaves that got half frozen.

This morning we woke up to this, with 4 more inches expected.

Lovely roses, mmmm! I wish I had room for more. Currently I have Oso Easy's "Paprika" and Morden's "Sunrise" -- both have been going strong for over a decade.

Zach -- Bummer about your winter sown trays! Have you tried milk jugs? Mine have a lot of drainage holes on the bottom and sit on gravel or wood planks.

Laura,

Oso Easy Paprika looks really pretty! Is it cane hardy in our winters or do you have to trim it back to the ground or little stalks of green?

I bought a whole truckload of plants and trees last year so I’m mostly hoping they’ll make it. I added the two fruit trees I couldn’t find last fall and a weeping karigana (spelling)? I also ordered a bunch of unusual hens and chicks for amongst the rocks. And then my cool garden stuff is in and everything else is started or seeds are waiting. I should probably get them in since I now have a greenhouse plastic 🤔

I’m hoping to try another fire spinner since the other ice plants seem to be doing much better on the hill then the last time I tried. Also was looking at some dark pink creeping/moss phlox but it was $10 for a 4” at Etchers?! That seemed crazy but maybe I need to wait for clearance or next year. I might need to replace some of my roses. They didn’t look so great last week. Also need some grass seed or sod. Trying to make that decision this weekend. Ordered two more raised beds for on the hill. They are nicer and more $$$ then I should have spent but I was bored and loved them. Oops. Then we are off to some hardscapes and the waterfall! It’ll either be this year because we are bored or next year because I just listed a ton of work. No rush. Grass is the only real priority.

I've tried the milk jugs, Laura, I thought they were difficult to deal with and on the few that did end up working, trying to dig the seedlings out was challenging. I like the six pack trays best, I just wish it would stop snowing. Since I brought them inside though, I have had Echinacea start to pop, and I think I'm seeing roots on the Verbena stricta and Joe Pye Weed (they are surface sown so you get to watch whole process) The Joe Pye is what I REALLY want to grow, we don't get very many hummingbirds out here on the prairie, but man do we ever get butterflies, and it's supposed to be a magnet for them. I also sowed a full flat of half showy milkweed and half swamp milkweed. So far I have had one of each sprout out of 144 seeds. I wont plant all of them around the house, a lot of them will go back out into the fields. I'm probably not doing much for the monarch population out here (the Front Range is the very western "fringe" of the eastern population) but they are gorgeous plants I think.

Rossnagl, I planted firespinner at mom's hose a few years ago, It's a beautiful plant, but a lot of it dies over the winter and it ended up just having a bunch of sad, small little clumps that don't do much. Mesa Verde did the same thing for me there. I think the solid colored ones like the purple, yellow, or white, must do a lot better since everyone here raves about them. I'm also planning on putting in grass. Last year my "lawn" was nothing but Kochia. Last weekend I put the small disc on the tractor and ran it over the whole yard in the front. I want to do a buffalo/blue grama mix but I've got to try to figure out a sprinkler system and the weed situation first.

Rossnagl,

Looking forward to pictures of your progress on the hill. What fruit trees did you plant?

Zach,

I'm glad you hosted the swap so I can visualize what you are talking about at your place. Very ambitious!

Maybe that’s why the ice plants I have are doing so well. I think they are solid pink. Hopefully I didn’t speak too soon after this cold snap. We spent all fall putting in an irrigation system including my drip system onto the rachio and I’ve spent a lot of time on weeds. Buffalo and blue gamma are in the running. I used BPGreen’s mix for the frontyard but the backyard I have the dogs and kid to consider on the little patch.

Ill update that thread but nothing much to show since it’s mostly a drain, irrigation and a small update on my hail support to make it possible to make it a cold frame/cold tunnel. All of it took awhile but nothing to look at. I was hoping to host a swap sometime soon so you can all see it and give suggestions but.... I am trying the three in 1 that Dave Wilson’s nursery has on YouTube with a plum, cherry and apricot. All self fruiting. I attempted to save them and the fruit/buds with heat tape and a frost blanket but we’ll see if it helped or killed them entirely today. I searched high and low for advice and didn’t come up with much so we will see.

From my reading the ice plants can't tolerate standing water so if they are in an area that gets wet and stays wet over the winter they will die. Well drained, like being up on a hill where the water can drain down, will always help them live through the winter. Ours do well because they are in a brick courtyard that melts pretty quick and dries up before other areas that are north facing or in the shade and hold the snow.

However, some are much prettier in the winter than others. I find the Hardy Yellow that turns red in the winter to be the prettiest.

https://www.highcountrygardens.com/perennial-plants/delosperma/delosperma-nubiginum

You can see it as the patch of red here on the leftand on the right.

Flowers in late May.

This is it in flower in June.

I have been dissappointed in the winter appearance of my purples. I have Table Mountain (aka John Proffit) and it looks blah in the winter. Not bad but not great. We had a sprinkler malfunction that flooded the bed and killed alot off so not sure how it will do this year.

I have a longer purple which shows long woody stems in the winter. It is the worst looking winter one. The long stemmed purple on is Cooper's Ice Plant. This one flowers more in July and is an excellent propogater. I just have to stick a stem of it in somewhere and it takes off on it's own.

• Botanical name: Delosperma cooperi, formerly known as Mesembryanthemum cooperi
• Common name: Ice plant, purple ice plant, hardy ice plant, pink carpet

There is also a peach one in this area and it is very sparse and does not choke out weeds like the yellow one. Is neutral on the winter look. Not very thick so not as pretty but not as ugly as the long dried stems of the unknown long stemmed purple variety.

Fire spinner for me has a fabulous winter look, thick and green. I'm interested to see what is encroching on it from the lower right in the photo. I think it may be the fast spreading, easy propogating purple one from above.

This is it in flower last year. You can see it really grew well over the winter.

I also have this white one from Skybird. It has a tight green winter form and is a very early flowerer. However it is very slow to spread and this year I had to pull out a patch of the fast spreading purple that had completely covered over one of my white patches. Several others are being overrun also. It may be best to pull some of them and concentrate them all together. I have five little patches.

The white is the earliest bloomer. It is already got a flower trying to emerge on April 18 (today).

I learned today the ice plants have a very big, long tap root. Not sure if transplanting them will work.

mmmm12, you can always propagate them by cutting. Since there may not be a Spring Swap, I can bring more Fire Spinner to the Fall Swap if there is one.

Thanks. I had a request for some of the Cooper's so I decided to try and propogate them. I put 6 stems into some sandy soil. Will see if they root. I had always just stuck them into the yard to propogate so that is what I did at first. Then I watered them.

Then I decided to read how to do it where it said to pull off the lower leaves so I pulled them out and did that then stuck them back in. LOL. Will be interesting to see if they live. I'm thinking I over watered them so will now let them dry out fully. I took the pulled off leaves and stuck them in there also. Have no idea if those will root also.

Decided to order one more rose. This one is from Witherspoon and will be my first bare root rose plant.

The picture on Witherspoon is this:

http://www.witherspoonrose.com/hypnotized/

"Bloom: Swirls of pink and creamy white"

and the helpmefind pictures are these:

https://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.71175.0&tab=1

"Pink blend. Deep pink splashed and striped white."

But the description are substantially the same so I'm thinking it will be the Helpmefind version which I love!

I'm in the process (or should be anyway... as soon as I finish my coffee) of planting a bunch of Lady's Mantle my neighbor recently dug up and divided. I'm plopping it all over as edgeing/ground cover wherever I have space and hope it takes off.

After 15 years in our house and lots of revising of garden beds, we finally have all hardscapes done and most of our trees and shrubs in place (other than those we've lost and haven't yet replaced), so I want to go crazy with perennials and bulbs this year. I love perennials, but after years of moving them around and learning what works where, I hit the pause button on them for awhile and tried to focus on trees & shrubs. If anyone has recommendations for favorite perennials, let me know! I especially love plants with interesting foliage.

I tried to plant a bunch of annuals from seed this year to transplant when we're past the danger of frost, but the seeds are old and only a couple of cosmos and one morning glory vine are coming up. Maybe I'll just try sprinkling the seeds I have left out in the garden in a few weeks and see what comes up.

I went to a spring swap about 10 years ago (the one in a park in Longmont) and still have snowdrop anemone from Skybird (wish it would really take off for me, but it didn't like it's first location), tons of Lily of the Valley, a balloon plant, and some pretty Kennelworth Ivy.

I just looked up Lady's Mantle. How pretty! It sort of has a feathery ethereal floating quality to the top of it. I love it!

Got my orders from Annie's Annuals and High Country Gardens (in Utah, not to be confused with High Country Roses in Colorado). All the Annie's Annual plants were as expected and the type I would buy in a garden store.

The High Country Garden's plants were pathetic. I would never have bought them if I had seen them in person, especially not for the price. The ice plants were at least healthy and lots of roots were bound in the pot. The Perfect Pink Phlox (Santa Fe Phlox) were single sprigs, some half yellowed, dirt spilled out of them in the box and the color of the flowers was a light purple, not vibrant pink. The Apache Plume was 1.25" high. Barely knee high to a rabbit. Oh, well, live and learn.

Mmmm that is terrible, hopefully it will live. If your pink phlox doesn't make it, I got one at Lowe's just over a week ago, and I bought a mini rose. The color is Mandarin. I was inspired by all your roses and wanted one. 😊

Both are gorgeous!

I have learned an expensive lesson about plant shopping on-line. $114 and this is what I get:

A closer view of the Apache Plume and phlox. Hopefully these phlox really do flower all summer into fall. And hopefully the color will change to match the picture.

Do you know the name of the type of pink phlox that Lowes had?