Mid summer flowers for 2012

One of the things I try to keep going in my gardens is flowering plants all year long, except for winter. I have crocuses which bloom as early as late February to a perennial sunflower which doesn't bloom until November, and there are plenty of flowers blooming in between.

My second favorite flower would have to the dahlia. Here are a few of them. These guys grow from tubers which can over-winter in zone 6 as long as they are well protected, and I use leaf filled bag to protect mine instead of digging them up and bringing them indoors which is too much work.

Here are the results.

Update on the actinada arguta issai kiwi plants

Back in spring of last year, I purchased 3 tiny kiwi plants from eBay. The species was actinada arguta issai which is known to be a self pollinating species. I've also found that this type propagates very easily from cuttings.

They came in tiny 2 inch pots, and were approximately 5 inches tall. Here's how they looked when I purchased them.

Update on all the peonies, itoh, tree and herbaceous species

One of the things I learned this year about peonies is that there is an intersectional peony which is a cross between a tree peony and a herbaceous peony which grows more vigorous that both. I find that these guys have woody stems, but also produce new eyes as prolifically as herbaceous peonies.

ITOH Peony

Here's my newest acquisition, a Julia Rose itoh peony which didn't have much root mass, but as long as it gets established in its pot, it should grow well. I planted it as deep as I could to encourage more eyes to form.

Update on the tree peonies

After 2 weeks of very warm weather with highs usually in the lower 70s and lows around 50, all the peonies have really taken off like crazy. It is only 16 days after my initial blog on peonies and some of them have gone from barely poking out to being well leafed out. Here's the link to the peony blog from 16 days ago to show the huge difference. http://stevesbamboogarden.blogspot.com/2012/03/tree-peonies-starting-to-wake-up.html

Starting with the tree peony seedlings, most of them are almost fully grown now. They might need protection if we get a late freeze.

Tree peonies starting to wake up

Ever since the start of February I have started to see tree peony seedlings pop up all over the place, however some of them got frost bitten since it is too early for them to start coming up. In order to survive, they simply need to successfully put out a leaf and take in energy over the summer so they can grow a lot stronger the next year.

Here are some of the TP seedlings from 23 February 2012. These are some of the ones coming out too early for their own good since their initial leaf is prone to freeze damage.