A Few Blooms for Late July

A couple of years ago while visiting a garden fair we purchased a few lilium bulbs. They were being sold by the local daffodil society. I was assured that all I had to do was dig a hole and plant them and they would bloom.

 

I am not sure what the variety name or type is since I did not label them when I planted them. Guess you can say I was a little skeptical of his claim that they were so easy to grow. One of the bags was supposed to be 'Mother's Choice'. Doing a search on the internet I found this variety offered for sale with the description saying it would grow 3-4 feet tall. This one is easily a little over 6 feet tall.

 

 

Another of the bags was labeled Mona Lisa. Perhaps that is this one?

Whatever their name or type

I just enjoy the blooms.

 

 







We can see these blooms from our kitchen window. As we stood there this morning admiring the blooms, my husband wished we had more of them. It doesn't take much of a nudge for me to be ready to buy more plants, so I have ordered a few more.

 

Hope you are enjoying whatever is blooming in your late July garden.

 

Sue Ellen

 

Just A Little Too Much

 After two days of rain we had a thunderstorm last evening that sat over us for almost an hour and a half.

 

 

The garden beds in the lowest part of the back garden were flooded. During a lull in the storm, my DH ventured out and saw water overflowing the waterways he had created to divert the rainfall that he had hoped would prevent this from happening. If this much rain had fallen over a longer period of time I think it would have.

 

 

 

Our land drains fairly rapidly because it is mostly limestone with many underground caverns. But with this much rain it will take a while for all of it to drain away.Then the cleanup can begin. 

Eary Morning Stroll

 

 

Each summer we look forward to the time that the daylilies begin to reach peak bloom. I don't think we are quite there but we are very very close. The beds are loaded with blooms. It is wonderful to just walk through the beds early each day to see what is blooming.

 

 

 

It is always a joy to see the first blooms of a new addition to the garden. Often we purchase based on photos we have seen, sometimes it is after seeing the plant in another garden. But you are never sure if it will be exactly the same in the conditions that exist in your garden. Below are the first blooms on No Boys Allowed and I could not be more pleased with this one.

 

H. No Boys Allowed

 

 

 

 

H. Intelligent Design

 

'Intelligent Design is in its second bloom season here and the blooms are better than they were last year. With the ample moisture and cooler temperatures there are so many more buds than last year.

 

H. Bark At Me

 

I always enjoy seeing the unusual forms bloom. I love the long petals that twist and curl. 'Bark At Me' is an older daylily with a 7.5" bloom.

 

H. White Chocolate

 

Another fairly new addition to the garden, 'White Choclate' was also catching my attention this morning. It's a 7" white flower with a green throat also classified as an unusual form. It is loaded with buds so I will get to enjoy it for quite a while.

 

 

 

I finish my stroll with a look at a newer bed of daylilies. This bed was created in the fall of  2011 as I divided older clumps of daylilies from another part of the garden. As I find companion plants that do well planted with daylilies I will be adding them to the beds. We added a phlox, a few lily bulbs and verbena to this bed. The verbena reseeds and I let a lot of it bloom where it wants.

 

Hope you have time to stroll through the garden and enjoy the blooms.

 

Sue Ellen



June Blooms for GBBD

H.  'Texas Beautiful Bouquet'

Mid June brings the beginning of our daylily blooms.  We are growing close to  600 cultivars with bloom dates that range from mid June until the end of July.  The daylily pictured above is one of my favorites of the early blooming ones.

H. 'Richard William Haynes'

Blooming in a bed nearby is another early favorite. This one is classified by the American Hemerocallis Society as an unusual form.  I love the long curling petals and sepals. I first became interested in growing daylilies after seeing the round ruffled ones but I find myself drawn more and more into the unusual forms.

Echinacea 'Daydream'

There are several of the cone flowers that are beginning to bloom. E. 'Daydream' was added late last year so these are the first blooms on this plant. I am very pleased with it so far. It is planted in one of the daylily gardens.

Echinacea 'PowWow Wild Berry'

 

Last year I purchased several of the variety E. 'PowWow Wild Berry' but several of them developed the aster yellow disease. I destroyed all the plants that displayed any symptoms and so far this year have not seen any evidence of the disease. I have not purchased any new cone flowers this year. I love these colorful plants and will really miss their presence if the disease appears again this year.

 

Achillea x 'Moonshine'

 

 

Coreopsis 'Sienna Sunset'

 

The yarrow's and the coreopsis are plants that can take a lot of neglect and keep right on blooming. The coreopsis have been divided several times and moved to other areas of the garden because I can count on them to bloom.

 

Hydrangea however are not always so dependable in my garden. I keep searching for the perfect spot and I may have found a good one for the one in this first picture. It may just have been the mild winter but I am hoping that its the location. Only time will tell.

 

Hydrangea macrophylla

 

 

Hydrangea quercifolia

 

This is the first bloom ever for my oakleaf hydrangea. The deer munch on this plant every fall and winter and I was sure I would never see a bloom. I had to move the Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow' in order to get a good picture. But at least I have proof that it bloomed once.

 

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lady in Red'

 

The 'Lady in Red' hydragea does bloom most years. There are lots of buds this year so I will get to enjoy it longer.

 

 

The final picture is of a Blue Star Creeper. It is new this spring and I am please that  it is blooming and spreading. This area is a small slope at the end of our rock wall garden. I am hoping that it will be vigorous enough to cover much of the slope and grow between the stones that are on the slope.

 

Isotoma fluviatillis Blue Star Creeper

 

Hope your garden is full of blooms for you to enjoy.

 

 

Sue Ellen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garden in Early June

 

Just a few glimpses of the garden in early June. We have had such wonderful weather the last couple of weeks but I have been fighting a summer cold and allergies from all the pasture grasses that are blooming all around us. I am really behind with getting some new plants in the ground and hope to make some progress this weekend.

 

 

The Kousa dogwoods are full of blooms this year. There are four blooming in our yard but this is the largest. In the foreground there are boxwood 'Wintergreen' and a couple of 'Blue Star' junipers. Behind this short hedge of boxwood are boxwood edged squares with tree form double pink knockout roses growing in containers. We just recently cut the boxwood hedges back to make them shorter to better display the roses. They still need a few weeks for the new growth to turn them back to their beautiful green.

 

The double red knockout roses are also putting on a show this week. They are blooming in front of a clematis 'General Sikorski'. In the background the Forest Pansy red bud is showing off its purple leaves. It was become one of my favorite small trees.

 



 

The Asiatic lilies have started to bloom. This is one of the very first that I bought just to try to see if they would grow in my garden so I don't have it's name. It is always one of the first to bloom. Below those blooms are the buds of one of the many daylilies that grow in my garden. 

 

 

Along the edge of a small pond we have planted elephant ears and canna. Last year we did not dig them up but instead cut them down and heavily mulched them with straw. I realize that they may not always survive our zone 6 winters but I wanted to experiment one year to see. This year with its mild winter they came through fine. Also planted here is a red twig dogwood.