Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - July 2009

July is a time of transition in my garden... when the spring bloomers are definitely finished, and the late summer blooms are just beginning. The change is just beginning, too: I have a LOT of work to do in the garden today, including ripping out pea plants and getting the last of the veggie garden in the ground! So without further ado, here's a mostly pictorial rundown of what's blooming in my garden today.

Vines & Shrubs: 'Jackmanii' clematis and coral honeysuckle are both in bloom on the vine side. Only one shrub is showing off right now, though. It's the pretty 'Sykes' Dwarf' oakleaf hydrangea, shown here with 'Black & Blue' salvia guaranitica and magenta snapdragon blooms:


Herbs, Veggies, Fruits (Edibles): 'Ozark' strawberries, my thornless blackberries (which also have berries close to harvest), 3 different eggplants, 6 different peppers, 8 different tomatoes, 2 kinds of basil, 2 kinds of oregano, marjoram, 'Grosso' lavender, and one branch of my 'Newe Ya'ar' salvia officinalis. That's a lot to choose from in terms of photo subject matter, but after comments on my last posts, I couldn't resist showing this 6ft tall bronze fennel stand in all its glory:


Grasses & Perennials: 4 different kinds of hosta and 3 different heuchera are in bloom--only because I haven't gotten around to cutting down the stalks yet! (I would only leave them if they were scented.) 'Samobor' geranium and 'Copper King' lilies are blooming their last, and 'Rotstrahlbusch' switchgrass is just beginning to throw up a few airy plumes. Several other lilies are showing bud color now, 3 different lamiums are in bloom, and my non-climbing clematis has its first bloom, and the lavender cotton is covered in little yellow button flowers.

Several perennials are in prime flower now, though, starting with echinops ritro-I purposely sited this to take advantage of the contrast of the globe thistle against the silky miscanthus:


'Summerwine' Yarrow, which picks up the warm tones in both this rock and a nearby peachy-leaf heuchera:


'Cinderella' milkweed, which was started from seed generously shared by another garden blogger:


And another asclepias, the orange a. tuberosa (aka butterfly weed) which is (finally) living up to its common name this year, as you can see:


Annuals, tropicals and houseplants: These (okay, and leaf/texture color and contrast) really carry me through the month of July! My sanseviera has thrown up some more flower stalks this year, and two fuchsias were recently cut back or they would be adding to the party. 'Vodka' wax begonias, and red and magenta snapdragons, are dependable bloomers in my summer garden, along with the salvia mentioned above.

A few more plants in this category that keep catching my eye include the 'Vancouver Centennial' geranium and pretty callibrachoa in the urn planter. I can't wait until the brugmansia in the middle joins this party:


A dahlia that I just couldn't resist at the local garden center, although I think I like the blooms even better when they're darker and not yet fully open:


My crown of thorns plant, daringly placed at the top of my porch stairs because I like the way it looks against the brick:


An echeveria that blooms in all the colors of a gorgeous sunset. In fact, I think that Steve and I saw all of these shades on Monday as we were finishing up a post-volleyball walk at Edgewater Park:


One of my favorite self-sowers, 'Hopi Red Dye' amaranth:


Last but not least, more photos from those tile planters that I just can't seem to get enough of. 'Angelface Blue' angelonia:


'Yubi Red' portulaca blooms:


'Desert Sunrise' (I think?) lantana and a different portulaca:


And a close-up of the multicolored lantana blooms:


Maybe I should have lumped this last one in the with the edibles... but here are the first blooms on my Meyer (Improved) lemon. Even if I get nothing edible from them, I adore their sweet scent:


Okay, enough procrastination... time to get back outside and get back to work! (For me, at least.) When you get a free moment, check out what's blooming around the world via Carol's July Garden Bloggers Bloom Day post at May Dreams Gardens.

A Working Vacation

I closed up my office late Monday afternoon, with the rest of the week free and two weeks worth of loooong days at work behind me. The laundry, the garden, the house, the dog, the boyfriend... all had been relatively neglected during our big summer event, and all needed some attention.

On Tuesday, I slept in, had a nice breakfast, took the dog for a very long walk, and then got out into the garden to enjoy all of the beautiful sunshine. First destination: The back yard, where some veggies are still in need of planting out and the weeds have been allowed to run rampant.

Romaine lettuce, skirted by woolly thyme, with a blueberry and 'Rotstrahlbusch' switchgrass

Looking across the bed closest to the house, I notice the absence of canna foliage. I was too busy to plant up the cannas this spring, and now that it's too late to buy more, my tubers are all shriveled or rotten. Too bad--this bed could have used their bold texture:


Maybe once the eggplants really take off, they will offer a little relief from the fine texture of the Russian sage and grasses. On the bright side, the clay tile planters are looking great again this year. I love the funky feel they add to this space:


And the way that they combine with the red of the Japanese bloodgrass to make a line of warm color through the cool blues, greens and purples:


Here's a close-up of the first tile planter--unfortunately, it's too early in the morning for the portulaca flowers to be showing off yet:

'Desert Sunset' lantana, a portulaca that was supposed to be 'Yubi Red' but isn't--the flower petals are "broken" in red and gold instead of being all red--and a coleus whose tag I will have to find to give you a proper ID.

And you can see that I've repeated the portulaca and orange-y coleus combination in the second tile, too:

'Sedona' coleus, 'Yubi Red' portulaca, and 'Angelface Blue' angelonia.
Surrounding cast: 'The Blues' little bluestem, 'Black Lace' elderberry, rhododendron, zebra grass, and 'Fuldaglut' sedum

If last year is any indication, the portulaca will eventually cascade all the way down to the ground. I love how it falls flat against the tile, so it still shows off the squareness of the planter. I also love the way the purplish stems and leaf centers of the 'Sedona' coleus pick up the deep color of the angelonia blooms:


Take a look back across this bed, over the second tile planter toward the first (and toward the driveway)... this is what I see from the corner of the main veggie area:


Continuing the orange-y theme, as you walk around the bed, these tile planters line up to lead your eye right to the native honeysuckle, lonicera sempervirens, growing along the fence. From far away, you can see that it adds height to the "back" of the bed:


Closer, you can see the pretty blooms on the honeysuckle as it towers above a stand of 'Hopi Red Dye' amaranth:


Coco likes this corner of the garden, for a few reasons: 1) It's usually cool there. 2) The neighbors on this side have a chocolate lab named "Hugs" (whose siblings are named "Kisses," "Hershey," etc.!) who likes to meet her for a sniff here. 3) There's a knothole in the front panel that gives her a great view of what's going on in the street.

I like that she tramples the sweet woodruff there, and keeps it in check:


I'm taking a new approach to my self-sowing annuals this year. They each will have their own area of the garden--the bronze fennel gets the front driveway area, the ruby mountain spinach gets the back area by the grape arbor, and the 'Hopi Red Dye' amaranth gets to add some pizazz, height and color here to Coco's corner:

'All Gold' hakonechloa, 'Hopi Red Dye' amaranth, hellebores, sweet woodruff, goatsbeard, and 'Hillside Black Beauty' cimicifuga/actaea.

There's still a little work to do in this bed. I didn't really wade in to weed, and there's lots of clover growing--along with many little 'Othello' ligularia babies, which have convinced me that deadheading this plant is the way to go in spite of how pretty the dead flower stalks look. Check out all of the little 'Othellos' at the feet of the nearby bugbane:


The ligularia seedlings aren't very useful, but many of my reseeders do double duty when pulled. The 'Ruby Orach' mountain spinach can be eaten like regular spinach. As I weed out some errant amaranth seedlings, I cut the ends and throw them into a vase for an arrangement that will pretty up the dining room table:


I'll probably throw in some lady's mantle blooms, and possibly some baptisia foliage, before I bring the vase inside. Here you see the lady's mantle flowers picking up the shades of yellow in a variegated sedum that, oddly enough, hates being in full sun but glows in this semi-shade area:


It might be nice to add in some of the orange butterfly weed (asclepias tuberosa) flowers, or the drumstick alliums, too:


But enough of that. There's still a LOT to do in the backyard today, from weeding to planting veggies to moving a few things that have gotten crowded along the way, like this poor fern:

This is one of those compositions that probably "shouldn't" work, but really does--for me, at least! 'Jack Frost' brunnera, carex platyphylla, and Scaly Buckler Fern surrounded by golden creeping jenny.

Somebody better whip my gardening assistant into shape before I need her help today, though. After just an hour of "hard labor" (supervising, mostly, but also eating raspberries and peas) in the garden yesterday, she disappeared. This is where I found her:


What a lightweight!!! LOL. We have two more gorgeous days of sunshine and great gardening weather ahead of us--and probably a mulch delivery, too--so there's still lots of work to be done. Time to get out there, and get busy... I hope that everyone else is enjoying the wonderful gardening weather that I'm getting this week!

And A New Camera Tour of the Front Yard

Lately, my only real chance to enjoy the front yard garden happens as I walk up to the front door after parking my car in the driveway post-work. So it seems fitting that I take you along on that short journey, one that can last as few as 15 steps--or as "many" as 30, if I get distracted by plants along the way!

Before I even get out of the car, I check out this year's version of the Urn Planter:

I tend to gravitate toward hot colors, and this year the urn features a brugmansia (thanks to a cutting from Joe at the CBG glasshouse) that is just now starting to take off. The underplanting includes 'Vancouver Centennial' geranium, a bronze sweet potato vine, purple iresine, golden creeping jenny (not seen--it's spilling out the back) and a 'Tequila Sunrise' callibrachoa that was recently pinched back (hence not in bloom.)

When I first get out of the car, my view of the front yard garden is hidden by the corner of the porch, and the end of a 6ft long stand of bronze fennel:

The contented buzz of parasitic wasps and various bees often greets me here, as they busily flit around the fennel. Lately my eye is drawn toward the newly-planted purple ninebark, which replaced the front-yard focus of my love-hate affections, the doublefile viburnum.

Rounding the corner, I usually look first to see whether the 'Summerwine' achillea is blooming yet. I love the way the feathery yarrow foliage combines with the bergenia, the rock, and the sedums in front of it:

The wispy brown blades in the foreground are carex flagellifera, which I grew last year in my chimney tile planters and then planted out in the fall to see if they might overwinter. One did, but it's not very vigorous... carex buchanii seems to be the sturdier bronze sedge here in my yard.

Taking a long view from this vantage point, you can see that I have a lot of plants crammed into this little garden--which I think of as the "Porch Corner Garden"--along with a trashpicked black milk can that sits in the dry corner:

From top to bottom in the photo above: Northern Sea Oats with a mini-leaf culinary sage and 'Angelina' sedum at its feet, 'Obsidian' (which despises me for putting it in afternoon sun and pays me back by requiring constant deadleafing) and a peach-leaf heuchera whose name escapes me, white-flowering 'Chubby Fingers' sedum album, the yarrow and the bergenia mentioned above, and the silver leaves of Elephant's Ear kalanchoe, a native of Madagascar that reminds me of the glasshouse biome in which I volunteer at the Cleveland Botanical Garden.

Turning to my left, I admire the ever-changing "Sharp Corner garden," where tough plants like lavender, sage, sea kale, variegated iris and yucca, and oakleaf hydrangea thrive:


I particularly love the way the wavy sea kale leaves seem to imply movement--they practically dance their way through the other plants:


Real movement does happen here, as well, thanks to the carex buchanii. I think that having the tough, squatty, and seemingly immovable hens and chicks at its feet really highlights the airy nature of the sedge when the wind tosses its blades around carelessly:

There are many colors of sempervivum here, including a pretty one that appears to be covered with spiderwebs of cotton. Some of them have started to bloom, and I can't wait until they become one tight mass of rosettes in this corner.

Picking my eyes up from the hens and chicks, which I always seem to bend down to inspect, I catch sight of the rest of the front sidewalk garden:

My eye travels along the pathway and stops at the Japanese maple, admiring its dark beauty. I sometimes think about how nicely the Spanish foxglove (digitalis parviflora) and bronze sedge pick up the orangey tones in the 'Amber Waves' heuchera at the foot of the maple, or wonder just how many different leaf colors I have crammed into this small space...

I alternately fail to see the empty pots and catmint debris in the scene above, or look at them and think, "Ah, yeah, I need to get that cleaned up," with a quick pang of "What must the neighbors think?!" guilt. But soon my attention is distracted by the nouveau-prairie feel of the 'Hameln' pennisetum, foxglove spires, 'Black & Blue' salvia, and golden oregano:


I have to walk past this section and look past the ninebark to see the recently cutback catmint (a passalong, but probably 'Walker's Low') still blooming away next to the unnamed miscanthus from my aunt's garden:
In front (to my view, anyway) of the miscanthus, a lemon thyme is blooming next to a heuchera that came with the yard. (Three of these heuchera, the Japanese maple, and the rhododendron in the back yard are all that remain of the original landscaping here.)

From here, I sneak a peak over the purple ninebark branches, back at the sea kale corner... and see that from this angle, you don't really notice the spacing between the plants:
No wonder my next-door neighbor said, "Time to tame the jungle?" When she caught me pulling a stray weed in my front yard the other day!!!

She probably isn't amused by the state of my front porch, either, now that I think about it. I do have random bags of potting soil and garden implements strewn about. And a couple of recent trashpicking finds... like this metal chair, which just needs a good wire brushing and a few coats of paint in a funky color to return it to fabulousness:

Oh, and of course, there are the houseplants that are brought out to summer on the porch! The houseplant jungle includes this blooming echeveria, flanked by variegated philodendron, a dark begonia, twisty spider plant, and...


... this pot of a little trailing succulent, which I adore:


On the matching brick column at the top of the stairs is another collection of succulents, including a fun twisted- and yellow-edged snake plant, a trailing lipstick plant, and a variegated agave that's also from Joe at the CBG:


Elsewhere on the porch I have two large planted containers (one with three bromeliads, coleus and Nonstop begonias; the other with black elephant ears, coleus and upright fuchsia), two hanging pots of various mints, a peace lily, a dark-leaf philodendron, aloe, a hanging pot of fuchsia, three orchids, another begonia, Thanksgiving cactus, and a few other random houseplants.

Definitely a jungle... and one in which I want to spend some more time, once this last "busy weekend" of the summer at work is finished!

A New Camera View of my Backyard

So the trip to Dayton last weekend was a success... I got to cuddle my new little nephew, see my family, introduce Steve to both grandmas, drop off some plants and gifts, and listen to the best radio station in Ohio for a few hours. And I came home with not one digital camera, but TWO!

My parents also had an extra digital camera that they offered to me, and I'm borrowing it to try it out. It's similar to the ones that I had been looking at online, so it's handy to have one to test before I buy. I still need practice with it (and I really need to remember to take the date off of the photos) but I thought I'd post some photos so you could see what's been going on in my backyard garden while I've been busy with work:

Blackberries are going crazy this year with blooms.

The little sedum hispanicum (I think) that I put in the "shallowest" part of the "Lock Garden" has filled in nicely already. I left in the beech leaf and my toes for scale so you could see how tiny this sedum is.

Eryngium, starting to get its blue tinge in front of a clump of 'Grosso' lavender. Both were supposed to be moved to the front yard garden this spring... Oops.

I love this little clay tile planter, with 'Yubi Red' portulaca spilling out the front, and 'Sedona' coleus mingling with a dark blue angelonia behind. (My other tile planter pairs the portulaca with a different coleus, and a lantana.)
Supporting cast includes 'Black Lace' elderberry, zebra grass, flowers from 'Plum Pudding' heuchera, and some spiky blades of little bluestem in the foreground.

Ruby orach self-seeds itself in interesting places--here it's a pretty companion to little bluestem. Ruby orach is also known as "mountain spinach," and I like it cooked with garlic and olive oil. It's even tasty when eaten fresh from the garden, if the leaves are small. That you can eat it makes it easier to weed somehow!

For the third year in a row, my 'Bing' cherry tree brought me nothing but a crop of aphids (and lady bugs, which are very cool looking in their spiney larval stage) and just plain looked horrible... so I started hacking at it a few weeks ago. About the time I got the small branches and all of the leaves removed, I was looking for a home for my clematis Jackmanii as well, and... voila: an interestingly shaped trellis that has pretty bark, too!

I can't wait for this lily, located near the far back fence, to bloom--I can sometimes smell it all the way in my bedroom, and it's a luscious orange color, too. (I want to say it's 'Copper King,' but I may be wrong on that one.) Notice also the reuse of those spiral tomato stakes that are utterly useless for supporting tomatoes.

Yum... Concord grapes. :) My 'Himrod White' has a bumper crop of baby grapes on it, too!

So as you can see, the backyard garden is mostly plodding right along, even without my attention. Tomorrow I should be posting some photos of the front yard garden... maybe even in time for inclusion on the Gardening Gone Wild June roundup? We shall see!