Wednesday, July 11, 2007

pinks and blues

I finally know the name of this rose - for sure - no more questioning the tag!
My mom and dad and I went out to the Arboretum one day and had a wonderful time walking through their extensive rose gardens and perennial gardens. No one thought to take a camera with, so I will have to go out again soon - their daylilies and dahlias are particularly stunning right now. As we were leaving the rose garden, I happened to notice one that looked very familiar. It was exactly like the one I have pictured above - and it was labeled Hawkeye Belle. So I'm thinking the description I read (pure white, 2 ft tall, etc) was incorrect - my tag is right - and from now on I will be referring to this as Hawkeye Belle. And what a lovely lady she is!


Here's another sweet little rose that I've shown before - Frau Dagmar Hartopp. I have 2 roses in the lakeshore garden behind the boat - this one and Country Dancer. Last year Country Dancer was fabulous - this year something is chewing on the leaves and evidently stunting the blooms. But FDH is hanging in there - so she gets to be the star this year.

This is a balloon flower that started up as a volunteer. I usually deadhead the balloon flower and drop the spent blooms on the ground. Last year a couple new plants popped up - nice! However, it is way lighter than my original - probably because the original is a hybrid???

Here's the original plant - definitely a darker more vivid color. Kind of liking the two colors together.

This is All Summer Beauty hydrangea - I showed it before when the blooms were just starting to turn pink. It really is a pretty color - who needs blue when you can get a fabulous pink like this - lol!
Remember my cabbage rose - Fantin Latour? It's a rose that only blooms once, but I wanted to show you how much it's grown since it finished blooming this year. All of the brighter green leaves are new growth. I think it has nearly doubled in size in the last month! Very cool.

I have a bunch of daylilies blooming so more photos to come. It's so fun right now with a ton of color everywhere you look. A couple of my hibiscus are loaded with buds - that will be fun. The Minneapolis paper does a Home/Garden section every Wednesday, and today they talked about getting great photos of the gardens. I will be experimenting, for sure. I feel like my photos of individual blooms are usually passable - but photos of the overall garden don't turn out like I want them to. We'll see - maybe the tips from the paper will help. (Lucky you - getting to be my guinea pigs!!)

11 comments:

Connie said...

Hawkeye Belle....what an interesting name! I wonder what the history is behind it? It is a gorgeous rose!
Thanks for the pink and blue tour.

Diana LaMarre said...

I like the two purples of the balloon flower, too. I have just one balloon flower (the dark one). Your flowers always seem to be just ahead of mine, so it should bloom soon. I'd forgotten about it, so I think I will take a walk out there now and see what stage its at.

kris said...

Hi Connie - the Hawkeye Belle is a Griffith Buck rose - developed at Iowa State Univ in Ames, Iowa (if I have my facts straight!). The (Iowa City) Univ of Iowa's team name is Iowa Hawkeyes. So I'd guess that played a big part. Iowa is quite often referred to as the Hawkeye state. I had to buy this rose because I went to school at Iowa - a Hawkeye through and through!

Zoey - I'm always surprised my stuff is ahead of yours! But I'm guessing you'll still have things blooming when mine are completely frozen out. I am enjoying your lilies - gorgeous!

Beth said...

My balloon flower really took off this year too. I tried the white last year but they weren't as hardy as the purple.

What do you do with your spent buds from your daylilies? Do you cut them back for more blooms?

I saw the podcast for the Star Tribune article on photographing your garden - I plan on checking it out.

kris said...

Hey Beth - I've never planted the white balloon flower, but good to know it's not as hardy. I just pull off the spent daylily blooms every day or two and toss them. I don't know that they will rebloom if they're cut back - have you had any luck with that? I thought the Strib article had some good ideas - we'll have to trade notes if we have success! :)

Kitt said...

Lovely blooms! I'm not famiiar with balloon flower. I'll have to research whether it can grow here.

Jane O' said...

I love the pink hydrangea. I never knew what all the hoopla was about to turn them blue. I say whatever happens, happens.

Rurality said...

The rule of hydrangeas is, wherever they grow blue, the gardeners want them pink. And of course it's true the other way around as well!

meresy_g said...

Lovely flowers. I love the hydrangea. And yes, rurality is right. I want blue and I get pink, which is why I still have a beautiful blue on in it's container. I just want to enjoy it a little longer. I get all kinds of pretty shades of balloon flower. I like it when I get the white ones forming from the seeds of the blue.

kris said...

Hi Kitt - balloon flower is a cool plant - platycodon grandiflorus. It comes in several colors and tall or dwarf varieties. I have the tall and it does really well. The buds look like little balloons.

Hi Marie - I agree - not worth getting worked up over!

Rurality - I think you're right - too funny!

Hi Meresy_g - cool - I hope mine keep reseeding and coming up in new colors - very fun.

Laurie and Chris said...

Your flowers all look great.