what's blooming today?

While I have some peace and quiet, because By took the kids with him to get more gas for the mowers....

* pinky-lavender china pinks, and some red and white annual dianthus
* "Sooty" sweet william (nearly black)
* tradescantia in shades of lavdender and blue
* sage
* "Orange Balsam" and caraway thymes
* chives (lavender)
* Alium "Molly"
* Iris pseudoacorus (yellow)
* various bearded iris, mostly light yellow and purples
* Iris "Superstition", which is one of the nearly black bearded iris, very dramatic, and two other nearly black types which came to me without names
* my favorite Iris fulva hybrid, all dark reddish-copper (I've sadly lost the tag)
* a few magenta stalks of Byzantine gladiolus, which is perennial here (reliably so, I planted these 10 or 11 years ago)
* yellow-flowered baptisia (can't remember species right now)
* peas!
* strawberries!
* anemonellas (white), going a couple weeks longer than usual because it's been cool
* "Nearly Wild" rose (pink, single, hybrid tea)
* "Austrian Copper" rose (golden yellow, Rosa foetidissima)
* white-flowered climbing rose, single flowers, I think its a Korean rugosa that's becoming invasive in the plains, but I do like it
* a couple early "Stella d'Oro" daylilies
* lemon lily, Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, which has tiny golden daylily blossoms that smell like citrus blossoms
* wild ginger, which you have to get down on your hands and knees to look at, but is work it for the weird-plant value

Front yard has:
* light yellow bearded iris
* "Eye of the Tiger" and "Wedgewood" dutch iris
* red rugosa roses (in the ditch)
* a pink floribunda rose that came to me unnamed, but is rather nice
* "Harrison's Yellow" roses (which I need to make cuttings of)
* Rosa setigera, a native prairies rose, which has large (for a wild rose), single, medium pink flowers and a tough-as-nails constitution

clearance table squee!

I need to start hitting the garden clearance racks at Lowe's on a weekly basis. Two weeks ago, I got 4-packs of marigolds and annual dianthus for $.50 each. Went back yesterday, hoping for more cheap marigolds. Got some marigolds and verbena at half off, and eight 1-gallon pots of annual dianthus ("Coconut Ice, white and red) for $.50 each!!! All they need is the dead flowers trimmed, and they'll bloom the rest of the summer. Yay for bargain-basement gardening!

In other garden news, I found the other nearly-black iris that I'd gotten from D years ago, so I can give her a piece of both kinds. One's a reddish black, one's a purple-black, and somehow lost them at home.

The sweet potatoes that I'd potted for propagating months ago have **finally** started to sprout. Grrrr. Here's hoping they grow quick, so I can make and root cuttings to plant out in the garden. Next year it might be worth the money to just buy the plants, for the time savings.

I *thinkz I've got seedlings of the cuphea I grew last summer, which would be very very cool, because li used all the seed last year. And I'm not sure that hybrid is still on the mrkets- cuphea "Summer Melody", once sold by Thompson and Morgan. Its a great summer annual for Kansas gardens, tolerates heat and humidity and even grasshoppers, it just doesn't get going until the soil gets good and warm.