Ok, never did I think I'd be picking an ASIAN JASMINE as a favorite new plant of mine, but there is just something about 'Snow-N-Summer' that has me hooked! If you haven't seen this new beauty, it's basically just like your standard groundcover Asian Jasmine, except the new growth emerges pink, then fades to white before turning green. It's such a lovely color effect. It looks fabulous in containers too...

So you may have seen this post some time ago about a mystery Iris in my garden. My new friend Kelly Norris from Rainbow Iris Farm was nice enough to ID it for me...finally!!

This is Iris 'Thornbird'. Such a lovely combination of beige and purple! I'll be bringing in some loose rhizomes of 'Thornbird' the first week of September at NHG. FABULOUS!

Blooming Perennial that Takes the Heat

Ok, looking for a perennial that will thrive and bloom during the worst of summer heat? AND you can eat it? Give garlic chives a try. This beauty just starting blooming about a week and a half ago in my garden, during one of the hottest Texas Augusts on record (Not sure we've seen a day below 104F all month).

The garlic chives in this photo are flanked by some 'Profusion Yellow' zinnias I just planted a couple of weeks ago, also in the heat, which are doing great. The 'Serena Purple' Angelonia and white periwinkles also look great in the heat.

And the work travel continues...leaving first thing in the morning for the Independent Garden Show (IGC) in Chicago (love heading up there this time of year...such a nice break from Texas summer heat!) The high is supposed to only be 80 degrees..whoohoo!! From there I go directly to Texas Nursery and Landscape Expo (TNLA) in San Antonio.

I'll be looking for excellent new gardening products, plants and such.

Here is a lovely photo from Chicago last year of a huge bed planed with Gooseneck Loosetrife.

Just a lovely shot of a bee snacking on a 'Mac N' Cheese' Echinacea.

My understanding is that an improved variety called 'Now Cheesier' (snicker...) will have better heat tolerance than the 'Mac N' Cheese' for those of us in the deep South. I guess cheese does tend to melt at 105 degrees, lol.

Echinacea 'Mac N' Cheese'
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

In preparations for putting my house on the market...I was compelled to take out the big veggie garden in the back yard. This was one of the hardest things ever to do! I've spent six years building my garden from scratch at this house, but knew that it may be overwhelming to most potential buyers...

So now, all that remains is a large expanse of new sod...Typically, I move in the opposite direction: The turf reduction program as I like to call it. So it feels pretty strange to be ripping out my precious veggie garden to replace it with turf. At least I'll be hanging on to all the cedar raised beds I built (you can see a few of them stacked in the back). They'll go into storage until we find a new home for them...

Sniff, Sniff...so sad...I'm sure I'll have fun building the new garden though, as always...

Another great tiny garden center you should visit, if you're in the Portland OR area, is Pistils Nursery. Very urban and super cute with a nice selection of plants and giftware. They also have a really fab chicken coop and some foul residents...

This boy was not happy about my poking around in his coop! I believe this is a Faverolle...please correct me if I'm wrong. What a beauty.

Super fab coop. Love how they've planted/set plants around the base.

Plenty of room inside for the babies...

Ok, WOW, was all we could say when we came upon the many greenhouses or gargantuan petunia baskets at Bauman Farms near Portland OR. They grow the biggest petunia baskets I've ever seen! Now, of course, we simply can't pull this off in Dallas, TX. Petunias just have too many grievances with our climate. Just to make it worse, they sell these monsters for...wait for it...$47.95!!! Good Gravy. That's it? Really? What a deal.

If you live near, or swing through Portland OR, Bauman farms is about an hour outside of town, but totally worth the drive. It's a 4th or 5th generation family farm that grows the most fantastic berries. They have a great produce stand, chickens, pygmy goats and garden plants. Too fun!