<p>any ideas on white flies? Destruction of…on a poinsetta.</p>
<p>hayden, I will get back to you today once I have had a chance to think and thumb through some gardening books - I promise!</p>
<p>hayden, I forgot to ask if you had space issues. If you have some room, perhaps some shrubs like azaleas (lots of different colors available) or golden spirea (great foliage color in addition to the flowers)? For bulbs, there are some wonderful allium and Turk’s cap lilies that should be in bloom mid-May. Bleeding-hearts are a very reliable, long-flowering perennial - I especially love the “Gold Heart” cultivar. </p>
<p>I would be happy to PM you with more information if you’d like.</p>
<p>we are in zone 6-8
I am going for native landscaping- so most are shrubby or ferns not perennials- although I do have some things that have been given to me that aren’t native but look like they could be like japanese anemones.</p>
<p>Shrubs that bloom in spring in my yard depends on weather- this year for instance even the lilac was very late & I have a great deal more sun than three hours.</p>
<p>Escallonia is a long bloomer and is drought tolerant as is cistus.
For northwest native plants- I have philidelphus lewisii( mock orange) which is easy to grow as well as nuttka roses </p>
<p>an azalea would be beautiful, but I think grows very slowly.</p>
<p>For those asking about clematis, I am just starting to grow twining plants, but I am finding that this one, is much healthier looking and long flowering than my armandi.
[Trachelospermum</a> jasminoides, Oregon State Univ., LANDSCAPE PLANTS](<a href=“Oregon State University”>Oregon State University)</p>
<p>Don’t know a lot about poinsettas, but soap spray works for white flies</p>
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<p>Thanks! My poinsetta thanks you! Hopefully…</p>
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<p>littlegreenmom, it’s easy. I hired someone! :)</p>
<p>A lawn story (CC college related).
Way back, in my vo-tec high school days an alum stopped by who had recently been hired as head groundskeeper at Stanford. Three weeks into the job and everyone in administration was praising him on the grounds improvements. Little did they know his secret was simply green and fresh. First he had the crews toss around a bunch of nitrogen fertilizer on the turf along the entry drives and and the walkways from parking to buildings for a quick green-up, then changed the lawn mowing and watering schedules for those same lawns to early Monday am, almost pre-dawn cutting with the watering starting right after the mowers finished. By the time the administration people arrived for their day the annoying mowers were elsewhere, the sprinklers were finished and the people saw and walked along freshly cut and watered deep green grass.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom,</p>
<p>You are so clever! Hiring someone. </p>
<p>What a good idea! </p>
<p>We had gardeners years ago. Then my boys had the bright idea that they would like to make the money we were paying the gardeners. Our landscapers thought it was sort of a waste of their time to actually do much gardening. They would cut the grass but not much more - and forget the weeds. If there were dandelion puffs on the lawn before they mowed, they didn’t care.</p>
<p>You can imagine how many dandelions we had after that. </p>
<p>I need to find some good gardeners that like my drought resistant garden. We took out our lawn and put in stepping stones, pebbles, bark and multiple easy plants that I cannot kill. At first our neighbors weren’t too thrilled. Now they like it and want to replicate it.</p>
<p>We did this to save some money in the long run, and also add some interest to the front of my house. I found out, sadly, which plants required too much maintenance for us. I can kill the best of plants. I actually took back a plant to Home Depot and the register clerk laughed and asked how I killed it. (I never brought another one back, after that!)</p>
<p>I also found out that you can use 2 liter soda bottles filled with water to put in your potted plants that need a slower soaking. Just put them in upside down full of water. They drain -but much more slowly than just watering with a can.</p>
<p>I can kill the best of plants. I have found that using liquid B-1 can sometimes rescue those on the verge of death, and it is good to use when repotting or planting one in the yard. </p>
<p>Still, I tend to stick with the plants that have a proven track record at my house…</p>
<p>scualum, your garden sounds lovely. One plant that might meet your needs and go well with your existing plants (assuming it works in your climate) is Aster frikartii “Monch”. In the PNW it blooms from midsummer through fall, with many stems bearing masses of periwinkle blue flowers about 1" across. The plant grows to 2-3 feet in diameter. It looks great planted in groups. Unlike some asters, it is not invasive and does not send out runners. I’d describe its shape as a loose dome (unless it’s next to other plants, the outer stems flop over).</p>
<p>If you’re interested in adding some different texture to your plantings but willing to skip the blooms, another of my favorites that would also look great with your perennials is golden (or gold-striped) hakone grass. It’s a slow growing clumping (not spreading) ornamental grass with gorgeous color and texture. In our climate it dies back in the winter – not sure what it would do in California. It stays less than a foot tall and looks beautiful planted in staggered groups toward the front or along the edge of a bed. You could combine it with moonbeam coreopsis, which is similar in color and scale. It’s expensive, but you can start new plants by dividing it. I once saw it flanking the steps from a sidewalk down to a front walk, and the softening effect was really pretty.</p>
<p>This is only sort of gardening, but it occurs forcefully to me as I look out my office window.</p>
<p>Stupid vine maples. Too tall to be a shrub and too short to really be a tree, these over-achieving yard weeds have one distasteful feature that is worse than their general inability to be a proper part of the forest: they turn brown in September. When other self-respecting deciduous trees are still green and glorious, these skulking little vegetable rumor-mongers are predicting winter – and the sooner the better. I hate them.</p>
<p>flatlander - thanks so much. I try to shy away from azaleas, beyond the ones I already have. I like them a lot, and no garden should be without them. But they do need a lot of water since their roots grow so shallowly. </p>
<p>I’m not familiar with golden spirea at all, and I plan to look that up.</p>
<p>I was already thinking of a rose-colored spirea. not sure yet how big they grow, though.</p>
<p>I’ll admit my first plan had been to try for plants in the colors of the schools for my kids. I realized that was a little silly - mainly when my H told me it was a ridiculous plan. I guess I was getting a tad carried away.</p>
<p>Space is not a problem, since i still have some areas I can work with. But I also was looking for something toward the front of the border, to go between phlox and blue salvia.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your help. I’d welcome the pm’s, but I think there might be others on this thread who could benefit from the shared advice, just as I have enjoyed reading the comments from others about their gardens.</p>
<p>BTW, has anyone had my experience with slugs this year? In the last couple of years, slugs have absolutely devastated my hosta. This year, I don’t see them much at all. Is it a cyclical thing, or could it be because I put down 203 inches of root mulch?</p>
<p>We plant all native plants now. We don’t have to worry about drought. The only plants we water are some porch plants. We never water out lawn. It has never failed to come back after a drought or wintertime. woot for maintenance free yards. lol</p>
<p>jman I took out all my sod last year - the only grass I have ( except for some blue fescue & sedges), is the strip down the middle of my driveway that I replanted this spring with Roemer’s fescue. ( I am going to make a little meadowish place in the back though to appease H, even though he hated taking care of the grass- he wants a place to pitch a tent 
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<p>( washdad you don’t have an office at Kelsey creek do you? we used to live very close and spent a lot of time in there rowing our rubber raft & fishing for bass) I love acer circinatum-( vine maple) I fact I just bought two of them instead of acer palmatums ( japanese maple) at the same price. ( am going mostly native and one is going to replace a laurel that is annoying)</p>
<p>They do look best in understory settings and they do great in heavy damp soils.</p>
<p>I do agree that they are overly enthuastic about starting their fall color when it is still summer- but I am a little concerned about this winter, the squirrels are going absolutely nuts, especially in my front yard because the empty rental next door has two huge pin oaks in their planting strip that not only drop sap all over our cars but spit acorns all over the sidewalk and garden beds.</p>
<p>Has anyone had luck with erica/calluna? ( heath/heathers) after seeing a garden that looked like a tapestry I bought a bunch this spring, repotted them until I was ready for them, but while they look good * now*, when I read that gardeners that I regard as mentors have trouble- I worry.</p>
<p>Question for flatlander: Curious about golden bleeding heart, why is it your favorite cultivar?</p>
<p>Does any one grow chelonia? Mine is having a great year. It is the host plant for baltimore checkerspot butterfly, that’s why I have it. This is the first year it impressed me as a mound of flowers.</p>
<p>Hmm, we have several of those vine maples on a slope, good root systems I am told, and good native planting, they have been red leafed all summer, I guess in WA it never really was summer this year and the vine maples proved it turning red in June :eek:</p>
<p><a href=“first%20time%20this%20summer%20we’ve%20really%20been%20rain%20deficient”>quote</a>
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<p>Yes, I’m responding to my own post… does this count as talking to myself?</p>
<p>Anyway, we’ve had slow steady rains all day today, absolutely glorious! Should amount to 3" by midnight. I’m pumped up again about getting back out in the yard as everything should really perk up.</p>
<p>So scualum, what’ve you decided to plant in the gap? Anyone else so ready for your yard to return to living color? A mild day like today makes me want to dig in the dirt.</p>
<p>worrywart, I’m right there with you. My daffs have pushed through, and I’ve been dreaming of their sunny little trumpets and that wonderful scent of spring.</p>
<p>I look at my clematis, and it’s hard to believe those brown, dead twigs can actually come back to life. </p>
<p>I can’t wait to be able to leave all my bonsai outside at night once more. I tote them outside whenver the temperative reaches a daytime level they can tolerate, then lug them all in again every night. When I have to be out for business, they miss me! Oh, please come quickly, spring!</p>
<p>No kidding, I can’t wait to see the matted down brown (from all the snow on it this winter) starts perking up! One of my most exciting moments of the year is when I see the first sign of something (usually crocus or daffodil) poking through the ground!</p>