Trowel and Error

[ParisGal]

That looks very much like an iris, but it's odd that it's flowered now, they're usually out in May (there's a festival here to celebrate them!)

[Demelza]

That's beautiful Demelza! Some sort of iris??

Ouch, I weeded the drive a few weeks ago, it's the worst job. While I was doing it, a small boy asked his mum what I was doing, she explained and he said " Oh like Nana?" . On their way back round he exclaimed "
She's STILL there!" Yes thanks, I'm elderly and stuck doing a job that takes forever.

That is exactly how I felt!

The leaves look iris (or even gladioli) like, but yes, it's strange it's flowering now! The mini blue iris bulbs I planted in the same bed came out in the early summer.

[Mountain Goat]

It is! Yes, surely May for most irises? I know reticulata irises are early spring but it doesn't look like one I don't think? (awareness of what they look like limited to a couple I've seen, maybe there are ones that look totally different). I guess it's something that's got very confused with the weird weather, it looks very exotic so probably even more confused.

An iris festival sounds lovely.

[FiveO'Clock]

That looks like a Mexican Tiger flower, they bloom in the late summer.

[Mountain Goat]

Brilliant Five!!

[absley]

Beautiful flowers Demelza.

I left my dahlias in the ground, Nana Goat...

I am never going to be sort of person who digs things up for winter, so maybe their days were always numbered. I'm not sure about the gaura and over wintering though - I think mine may have got swamped by other stuff, not sure what the issue would have been for my friend, but hers was not new.

I meant to say before, the other colour we've got is SO MANY autumn flowering cyclamen, scattered all over the place, which is really odd as don't remember any flowering last year. I'm not really a fan (and find their curly tendrils icky when i dig them up) but my Mum has a soft spot and associates them with my Dad, so they'll stay.

[Mountain Goat]

I don't know that there's any best way really with dahlias, they could rot if you lifted them and didn't store them properly too, and I think they have a solid chance of being fine in the ground. In the front/side garden my guiding principle is that if something isn't tough enough to cope without a lot of faff, it doesn't belong there* and I'd apply that to the back too if it were larger. And with the climate changing I don't think we can predict what will survive and what won't very accurately anyway. I bet the gaura didn't cope with the damp spring or something like that.

* in theory. In practice I'm out there pandering to every slightly sulking flower.

That's nice that your Mum associates them with your Dad and yes, makes it quite hard for you to dig them up. I thought I wasn't a fan but saw some naturalised under a tree the other day that looked really lovely en masse. Oh, I am planning to dig up some more lawn for a new bed soon, primarily for a tree (probably a Red Falstaff apple on semi dwarfing rootstock but my research is not complete). I think I'll have another rose at the other end of it though (ie not under the shade of the tree). The tree will block the delightful sight of the compost bin.