July Bloom Day

 

My back yard in July.

It's July Bloom Day, hosted by Carol Michel's May Dreams Garden Blog on the 15th of every month. Welcome to my Zone 6B Virginia garden! It's amazing to contemplate nature's bounty when I look out from my deck on this lovely summer morning at 6:00 AM, and think back to some thirteen years ago when my husband and I bought the property... this was all just an empty expanse of weedy grass. 

 

Looking west from the deck.

Looking east, the vegetable pagoda and Herb's bed.

 

The grass is still weedy, but as for the rest, what a change! It's taken a lot of hard work, heartbreaking trial and error to bring what you see here into being. And yet, my garden is young by garden standards--my trees are still small. I've done it mostly by myself, with a bit of help from Herb. It's finally starting to look like the garden I had envisioned, despite the deer's voracity, three years of drought, and seventeen-year locusts. This year's plenteous rains have done wonders for it. Let's get down and take a closer look at what's blooming.

 

Agapanthus 'Blue Nile'

 

Agastache 'Blue Boa, 'Apache Sunset' and 'Pink Pearl' with 'Karl Foerster' feather reed grass.

The Agapanthus 'Blue Nile' in Herb's bed is blooming, along with Clary sage and 'Texas Red' sage. Farther back in the same bed, my three Agastaches are also starting to bloom--'Blue Boa', 'Apache Sunset' and a pink one I think is 'Pink Pearl'. For some reason, despite growing for several years and re-seeding, 'Blue Boa' doesn't seem to want to spread much--it should be much larger by now!

 

Vitex (Vitex agnus-castus) shrub in east garden.

Bottlebrush Buckeye (Aesculus parviflora)

 

Bottlebrush Buckeye flowers close up.

My Vitex shrub, AKA the Chaste tree or summer lilac, is in full bloom--I love the cooling effect of the color.

The native Bottlebrush Buckeye comes into its own at this time too. The airy delicate spikes are loved by butterflies and hummingbirds. Speaking of which, we saw a hummer buzzing the Clary sage--had no idea they'd go for this sage which has such a medicinal aroma. 

 

Butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) and Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

 

The Butterfly bush is growing back well despite a huge set-back this spring from an April frost right after a hard pruning.

Coneflowers in the back bed.

 

Hybrid daylily.

The deer left me a few coneflowers in the back bed (orange Sombrero I think) and one lone daylily flower--I spray them with deer repellent regularly, but they eat the buds anyway. They've also eaten every bud of the wild Bergamot I planted from seed last year. I thought that Monardas wouldn't be particularly palatable to deer, being in the mint family, but they eat the red 'Jacob Cline', while the Anise hyssop and narrow-leaved mountain mint are not to their liking. I'm gradually becoming an expert on deer-impervious plants.

 

Mountain mint, Anise hyssop, Monarda 'Jacob Cline' and oat grass.

This year I grew some Cleomes from seed, but only three plants survived--very pretty annuals,though, I'd like to try them again next year--perhaps they'll oblige and re-seed themselves?

 

Spider plant (Cleome)

West foundation plantings: Salvia yangii (formerly Russian sage), Catmint and one Cleome.

The Chinese iris in the long island bed in back is not palatable to deer, neither are the pink Dianthus or the minty green plants (some sort of wild Calamint?), but they go for the blue flowers of the bush Clematis behind. They've about extirpated my Asian lilies and finished off most of the black-eyed Susans in this bed.

My heather grows under a wire cloche, which distorts its growth, but I'd have no plant at all without it--I should prune it this fall to see if I can get rid of the leggy branches and re-shape it. But perhaps early spring is a better time to prune heather--any advice?

 

Chinese iris and pink Dianthus.

Heather in bloom.

 

Further down this bed a lone spike of orange Gladiolus survives under the Weeping Butterfly bush (Budlleja lindleyana). The broken upside-down flower pot is a toad-house.

 

Orange Gladiolus with Buddleja Lindleyana

My potted plants on the porch are those most susceptible to deer: an avocado tree grown from seed, a bi-color leaf Sunpatiens my sister gave me, a Platycodon waiting to be planted when the weather cools, a yellow Hibiscus, purple basil, Begonias, Caladiums, succulents and other house plants that live outside during the summer. I even brought my Cattleya orchids outside in hopes of some budding.

 

Potted plants on the front porch.

Plants on the porch.

This year the hanging baskets on the porch have mostly Petunias, with red Pelargoniums and sweet potato vines. One variety of Petunia, the 'Pretty Grand mix' emits wonderful perfume at night--the dark purple ones in particular. I've never come across scented Petunias before--though some varieties I've grown before were advertised as scented, none had proved to be so until now.

 

Petunias 'Pretty Grand Mix'

Porch baskets

Other plants bloom along the front walk: a miniature yellow Dahlia, and white Heliotrope. The Australian red finger lime is setting more fruit. The tropical salvias ' Black and Blue, 'Amistad,' and 'Faye Chapel' haven't put up much of a show yet--the deer ate all the buds of 'Faye Chapel' before they had a chance to develop!

 

Plants along front walk: Puya alpestris on the right.

Miniature yellow Dahlia.

White Heliotrope.

Australian red finger lime

Irish moss (Sagina subulata) by the front walk.

 

Returning to where we started on the rear deck, the two Cupheas are putting on a show: 'Torpedo' and 'Honeybells.' Next week my contractor starts on the deck repairs and refinishing, so I'm trying to keep the back deck clear of plants. Ordinarily, my deck would be filled with potted plants.

 

Cuphea 'Torpedo'

Cuphea 'Honeybells'

 

Thanks for visiting, hope to see you next month!

Late Summer Flowers

Red Dahlias.

Red Dahlia with hardy Begonia.

Late summer is a time of the year when most plants are finished with the season's growth, and setting seed. Fall bloomers are starting to show color in their buds, but in between, there are some plants that like to bloom. I bought this deep red Dahlia on sale a couple of years ago, and was so late in setting it out that it only produced a couple of flowers before the first frosts arrived. Last year I replanted the rhizome in a pot, hoping to be able to save it from early frosts, and it never produced any flowers--the pot was probably too small. So, this year I re-potted it in a much larger pot, and set it outside.

The Dahlia grew to handsome proportions, with several large stems, but these started to flop over. I tried staking it and succeeded only in breaking off one stem. You can't fight gravity after all, so I set it against the trunk of my cherry tree and allowed it to flop as it pleased; the reward is these two gorgeous flowers!

The hardy Begonias growing next to the Dahlia are now starting to bloom and will make a nice show in a week or two. My Begonia patch has been gradually expanding from one plant I brought from my garden in Columbia eight years ago and reliably re-seeds itself every year.

Clematis 'New Love'

Clematis 'New Love'

My recently acquired Clematis 'New Love' has put forth some flowering spikes. This is a new type of Clematis bred to form a small shrub rather than a vine, and has small bell-shaped purple flowers. It's not quite what I had expected, but very unusual and pretty anyway. We'll see if it manages to survive and continue to bloom in my garden.

Black cotton bolls

The black cotton plants are developing a number of large bolls that should be loaded with seeds for next year's garden. The coneflower seeds are ripe and the goldfinches have been having a banquet with them--they've been visiting regularly morning and evening.

Goldfinch on coneflower seedhead.

Goldfinch feasting on coneflower seeds.

Caryopteris 'Longwood Blue' and native mints

Caryopteris 'Longwood Blue' above, known as Blue Mist or Bluebeard plant is another late flowering shrub with feathery blue spikes. I combined my three plants with two native mints (whitish flowers on the right): hoary mountain mint (Pycnanthemum incanum), common mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum), and sea oat grass (Chasmanthium latifolium) in this bed.

Dog stinkhorn (Mutinus caninus)

The odd fungus known as Dog stinkhorn (Mutinus caninus) has made its reappearance in our yard recently. Herb came across these while he was mowing the lawn the other morning, and ran in to tell me about his strange sighting. I recognized it at once--we'd first encountered this weird fungus in Columbia, where it sprouted from a mulched flowerbed. Apparently the spores can be carried in the shredded bark mulch that is commercially available.

These strange mushrooms are members of the Phallaceae family, appropriately named as you can see. They attract flies and other insects that spread the spores. I find these weirdly fascinating--I may do a botanical illustration of one eventually.