Garden Surprises?

[starshell]

I had a couple of surprises this year. One is a 4 o'clock growing down along the woodpile, quite a ways from the other plants. I'm blaming the chipmunks for that one. Another is a naked lady that came up well away from where the others are, and the others did not come up this year at all. Just this one short little stalk with 3 little flowers on it. The best one was some petunias. I had one last year that was so pretty called pink stardust. It was pink with dark pink veins. Wanted to get some more this spring but couldn't find them. By the time I decided I wasn't going to get any, there were tons of little plants coming up in the pot I had them in last year, so I scooped the top layer of dirt off with the little plants in and put them in another planter. I figured they would die off but to my surprise they continued to grow. The big surprise was when they started to flower. Some are deep purple, white, white with veins, pink with veins, etc. But none that look like last years. lol

[Gayle]

Oops, bad wording on the columbine.  It's been finished blooming for a while but the plants still look good.  Usually it comes up, never blooms & then dies off.

[luvmyb_b]

Renee, I had a hybrid snapdragon that I LOVED.  It was a combo of pink, yellow, and white.  I saved seed for it because I loved it so much.  The first year the blooms came back fairly true to form from the year before.  The second year and beyond, I've gotten solid yellow, bright pink, and white blooms.  This year there is a messier version of my favorite.  I've got a pretty good section of the snaps that are an odd pink mixed with white, and a tiny bit of yellow in places.  It's a real mongrel looking plant compared to what I first got, but it's pretty in its own way.  It sounds like your Pink Stardust was a hybrid also.  They must have had to do a lot of breeding to get the Pink Stardust from all those colors!  Pretty cool, though!

Got ya, Gayle.  I'm kind of sorry I misunderstood you.  It would be nice if you still had columbine in bloom. 

[luvmyb_b]

While walking around the backyard tonight I got a few pleasant garden surprises. The first one was when I was watering the dahlia pot.  Nothing has bloomed in there yet, or so I thought.  I looked down inside the pot and kind of far down are volunteer pink celosia starting to bloom.  Never saw that coming!  As I continued on my walk, I see that I am going to have one lone gladiola bloom from the 12 that I planted in a pot this year.  They were small and DM warned me that they may just grow this year.  Mostly, she was right, but one will bloom sometime this week - I think. The other surprise I got was when I saw that the Southern Charm verbascum that I started from seed over the winter is going to bloom soon.  I didn't expect that until next year, so I'm really happy to see I was wrong.  I think the Katie's Candles verbascum that Charlene gave me seed for did that last year also.  There were just a smattering of blooms the first year, but they were gorgeous this year.  Hopefully the Southern Charm will do the same next year.      

[Kathy_SD]

I was out in the alley weeding that I haven't weeded in ...forever.. due to the heat, dryness and gnats. I was so surprised to see 2 large 4 oclocks that I had forgotten I planted out there that I had got from Charlene. Also out there was a pink lantana that I had bought in Iowa and it was huge but only a couple of blooms on it because even bigger weeds were hiding it from the sun.

I only got part of the alley weeded tonight so hopefully when I go back out there tomorrow morning I will find more surprises!

[Gayle]

I didn't think my coral salvia had returned but I foud it among the weeds today.  LOL

And I'm thinking about taking my Sedum out of the bed.  It's just gotten too big & I don't really like the crowded, overgrown look.  So I was debating back & forth on whether to do that when I found a smaller Pink version that I forgot all about.  It doesn't get as big as the red ones so now I have something to replace them with.

[carross]

When watering my Martha Washington I found a small baby one, I'm going to try and keep it over the winter. I have never had any luck keeping MW alive during the winter months. Therefore I'm really happy over this find.

[flowerlady2]

This spring one of the yellow hibiscus came up probably 50' from the one in my flower bed, it is blooming now. Need to cut the top out before it gets tall so it will bush out.

Abey

[iliz9]

My surprise yesterday was of a different kind....my tree rose by the front door when left in the morning, was looking really good, then came back in the afternoon and saw wilted ugly looking leaves all over, even though I was tired, I went and got a long pair of scissors and started clipping those leaves, then I noticed something moving at the middle of the blades...it was a huge grosshopper, that I had mistaken for a brown leave...My rose migh be thanking me for saving it from that killer, probably he would had finished the poor thing off if given the time....

[flowerlady2]

This was a surprise this spring. We have no idea where it came from.

Abey