Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day–the Ides of July
May Dreams Gardens hosts a monthly blogger’s party called–you may have guessed it–Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day
(Oh and btw my keyboard has had a little too much spilled tea so the period and comma aren’t working)
I don’t know if one has to be invited to join the party but if so i’ll probably find out when I tag this post
In the meantime here’s a picture-rich text-poor (because of no periods and no commas) tour of my garden today
Starting with the dragonfly (four-spot skimmer–Libellula quadrimaculata) who just loves this one spent flower stalk among the Iris:
Moving right along: (CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE)
Among my favourite flower combinations: Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ with Leucanthrmum x superbum –Shasta Daisy and Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’–Smoke Bush
David Austin Rose ‘William Shakespeare 2000’
This is one of the most difficult colours to accurately capture–it’s a little more magenta–
Crocosmia x crocosmiflora probably ‘Star of East’
This small crocosmia is a lovely fountain of orange and green
This amazing carpet of Sagina subulata has been blooming for well over a month and clearly isn’t finished yet
This Scotch moss–Sagina subulata–is about 1” high the flowers about 1mm
Pretty sure this is Echinacea ‘Cheyanne Spirit’
Two no-name hostas
I seldom like the look of hosta flowers and occasionally cut them off–these are pretty however
On the other hand this ‘Elegans’ is less than optimal in every way: doesn’t keep its blue; leaves burn with the least sun despite a lot of moisture and truly ugly flower stalks
Hosta sieboldiana ‘Elegans’
But I love the idea of collecting the seeds so I’ll leave it
And now for this year’s selection of my own hybridized daylily keepers (as opposed to the dozens I’ve shovel-pruned):
No-Name daylilies–Hemerocallis–#1and 2
Hemerocallis #3
Hemerocallis #4–I love this one–the flower is only about 3” across but the scape is tall enough to see above all the local foliage
Hemerocallis #5–another butter yellow and little larger and taller almost hidden in the raspberry bushes
Hemerocallis #6–slightly boring colour but I love the shape and it’s been blooming for weeks!
Hemerocallis #7 is my favourite especially when its neighbour the Jude the Obscure Rose is in bloom; which it currently isn’t alas
Another view of #7; can’t get enough of it 🙂
Enough of daylilies now on to the rest of the garden
Can’t get enough snapdragons
Rose ‘Magenta’–pretty colour but terrible shrub; black spot magnet and weak branches I’ll give it one more year to perform better
Hypericum ‘Albury Purple’–one of my favourite garden plants
Not blooms but oh so colourful Imperata cylindrica–Japanese Blood Grass
Rose ‘Rosemary Harkness’ with Clematis jackmanii Neither doing well but since I’ve tried to kill Rosemary several times can’t complain
Hibiscus syriacus ‘Red Heart’–Hardy Hibiscus aka Rose of Sharon
Echinacea purpurea–coneflower with bee; I notice the bees like this echinacea and the white one but haven’t seen any activity on Cheyanne Spirit even tho’ it allegedly sets seeds
Hydrangea arborescens ‘Invincibelle Spirit’
None or my hydrangeas do really well; Invicibelle Spirit has beautiful blooms but the canes are very floppy
A Hydrangea expert from Heritage Hydrangeas spoke at my garden club this week and described how he stakes his Annabelle Hydrangea (same species and series as ‘Invincibelle Spiri’t and ‘Incredibelle’)
I guess it’s not just my plant care at issue here
Floppy Hydrangea arborescens ‘Invicibelle Spirit’
I may move it into more sun in the fall
Couldn’t resist one more hemerocallis–#8
And finally
Acanthus spinosus– Spiny Bear’s Breeches–and spiny it is indeed!
Acanthus spinosus — See those booomerang shaped poiny bits? Seriously sharp!
So that’s the garden tour for mid-July–now the 16th because it took me that long to compose it
As I’ve said many times this isn’t a “designed” garden–just one that meets my needs of having as many fun interesting wildlife attracting plants as possible
Having said that I try to incorporate design principles as I go along and as I change things around
Next post will be on plant combinations
Stay tuned
