Backyard chickens for fresh eggs!

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!

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 104 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.

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...

As with fashion, there are trends that come and go within the world of plant breeding. The hip new thing is Echinacea. Now, it used to be that we had just a few options in the world of cone flowers. Pinky purple..then some pink..then white was the new big thing. Well watch out, because there are about 50 new cone flowers on the market now in all my favorite shades of peach, orange and blends thereof. So lovely...and you are going to WANT them! 

I'll give you a teaser...this is 'Hot Papaya'...so fabulous. At North Haven Gardens in Dallas, we'll have a limited quantity of some of the new Echinacea this fall, plus a big selection of many different varieties in spring and summer of 2011. Varieties such as 'Firebird', 'Secret Desire', 'Tomato Soup', 'Mac N' Cheese', 'Summer Sky' and many more. Can't wait!