Wow...and now Black Petunias

I spent the day touring Garden Centers in the Chicago area, and stopping for a lunch tour of Ball Gardens. Ball Horticulture is one of the World's leading horticuture companies that produces seeds and herbacious plants. Their Gardens are located in West Chicago Illinois.

During our tour we were shown three as of yet un-named petunia varieties. These will be on the market in 2011. The first one's flower was as black of a flower as I've ever seen. The other two were bi-colored. Background was the same black as the straight colored variety. One had a Greenish Bar, and the other had a Raspberry Purple Bar.

We were giving the opportunity to help name these new varieties. I gave my input, but I'm not telling what I said the names should be. These look like their must have flowers for the garden in 2011.

At Dave's House an update.

In continuing with my container review, is my mixed succulent garden. The plants in the container are: Aloe 'Silver Ridge'
Graphtopetalum paraguayense- Ghost Plant
Kalanchoe thyrisflora 'Flapjacks'
Sedum nussbaumerianum - Golden Sedum
Sedum hispanicum 'Aureum'.

Almost all of my containers are on drip irrigation. This particular planter gets no automatic water. It also has not been hand-watered this year either!
It is surprising how much these have grown in the past two and half months. The Aloe just produced a flower bud, and I'm thinking that it should open in a few days. I'm happier with the results of this container, and I give it an A.

Container Updates Before and After

One of the fun things about container gardening is that its always a work in progress. It's totally different than any other project that you can do at your house. It is constantly changing and transforming into something entirely new. Sometimes you like the transformation, and sometimes you don't.
I've taken pictures of most of my containers a few weeks after I planted them. With all of the time that I've been away to tradeshows and such this year, there hasn't been much photo time at home.
So with camera in hand here is a June shot, and an August shot of my container.
Sunflowers are so short lived, but they do add some dramatic flare. After it put on its three week show, the Sunflower was culled out, and the rest was left to grow.
The Tinytunias in the back stopped blooming completely. The Artist Purple Ageratum on the other hand filled in nicely, and took over for the Sunflower.
Overall, this is not my favorite container. For its August look, I would only give it a B-.