August GBBD: Summer Doldrums

It's mid-August, and I've lost my garden motivation.    It's hot and humid, and frankly, I have no desire to work up a sweat,tending to all weeding and pruning I should be doing right now.  About the only thing I have any energy to do is to water the pots and new perennials, and that's only because I know they will die if I don't keep it up.  The garden marches on, though, regardless of my neglect with a few standout plants for this Bloom Day and lots of other smaller blooms to enjoy.

The kaleidoscope of colors provided by the daylilies for July Bloom Day are pretty well gone, and the swaths of coneflowers that bloomed a month ago are looking pretty worn and sad.   But there are a few plants that have taken their place and really stand out in the garden right now.  One is the Susans, especially the brown-eyed ones, Rudbeckia triloba, which started out as a single volunteer and have now practically taken over the lily bed.

I keep telling myself I should cut these back so the few other blooming plants in the area have a chance to be seen.  But it's hard to be ruthless with such a cheerful and enthusiastic bloomer.  Besides, that sounds like work:)

A few volunteer cleome don't seem to mind and fight their way through the maze of yellow.

Besides the Susans, you can't miss this tall lily.  While most of the lilies are finished, there are a few late bloomers, including this 'Challenger' lily.  I received a division from a friend two years ago, but this is the first time it has ever bloomed.  I knew nothing about this lily at the time, so what a surprise when it rose up to a full six feet in height!

I've since done a little research on this lily and discovered it's an heirloom lily, introduced the year I was born.  Standing alone as it does, it's certainly been a conversation piece for anyone who's visited, but it does look a little lonely by itself.  I have my eye on a source for 'Autumn Minaret,' another tall, late lily to keep it company next year.

The other plant that really stands out in the garden right now is the 'Limelight' hydrangea, which can be seen the moment you drive up our lane. More pruning is needed here, too, but at least that can wait till spring when the enthusiastic gardener returns.

I love these huge blooms, and I've found an easy way to dry them at the end of the season to enjoy them all winter long.

The best time to view the garden on these hot days is very early in the morning or late evening--if you've put on mosquito repellent, that is.  I'm looking forward to cooler days ahead; this corner of the Arbor Bed is already starting to look a bit like fall. 

Surprise lilies still blooming on a hazy morning.

Oftentimes the smaller blooms get overlooked for my Bloom Day posts, so I wanted to focus on a few of them this month.  These zinnias aren't small, but they sure are few in number compared to most years.  I don't know what happened to all the seeds I planted, unless my garden helpers earlier in the summer accidentally smothered them with mulch.  The same thing with my cosmos--I see only one plant that might bloom yet.

Thankfully, the 'Zowie Yellow Flame' zinnias were planted in the front, and I made sure to mark them carefully.  Mixed with 'Becky' daisies here, they usually attract lots of late summer butterflies including Monarchs.

I've become really attracted to low-growing sedums and am planting more in the front of the sidewalk garden.  This is a new one, 'Dazzleberry,' which according to the local nursery owner fared better than others during the torrential rains of June.

Nearby is my first successful attempt at growing dahlias, 'Mystic Illusion.'

Yellow begonias brighten a spot on the front porch.

I had so much success with starting Rudbeckia hirta seedlings this year that they're planted everywhere. My favorite 'Prairie Sun' seeds were all sold out, but these 'Irish Eyes' look almost identical to me.

Gomphrena carries on in spite of the heat.

This is the time of year when some of the petunias in my planters start to look pretty sad, so it's a good time to evaluate what varieties stand up in the heat of summer.  'Royal Velvet'  and 'Bordeaux' Supertunias' are two that look as good today as they did in June.

It's easy to overlook the small blooms of this 'Kent Beauty' oregano in one of my herb pots, but I love them.  I had long admired these blooms on Joy's blog, so I'm so happy I found some to plant this year.

The hostas known as Plantain Lilies are pretty plain most of the year, but boy, do they make up for their ordinary green leaves when they bloom!  One or two plants in my garden have been divided and divided in recent years, so I will have a mass of these lovely white blooms for the next few weeks.

While I have been too lazy unmotivated to work in the garden much the last few weeks, I have taken the time to just sit and enjoy it, especially to enjoy all the little visitors to the garden. This cabbage white butterfly (I think) loves the 'Victoria Blue' salvia.

The hummingbirds are loving all the late blooms, too, though so far I've only managed to photograph them while at the feeder.  There's nothing better than watching hummingbird dances in late summer!

The most numerous visitors to my garden--besides the bees, of course-- are the goldfiinches.  This one looks like a juvenile, I think.  I just want to reach out and pet him:)

To some, the coneflowers might look tattered and ugly, but the goldfinches like them this way.  It's been a nonstop finch party at my house the last two weeks, and I'm not about to end it!  The coneflowers will stay as they are so I can enjoy watching my little feathered friends.

Perhaps instead of saying how unmotivated I've been about gardening lately, I should say I am taking a much-needed garden staycation, just enjoying the results of my work.  There will be time enough during the cooler days of autumn to get back to work.

Thanks to our faithful hostess Carol for hosting another Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.  Check out May Dreams Gardens to see what else is blooming during these dog days of August.

GBBD July: It's all about the Coneflowers...

Today is that special day of the month, Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, and I am so glad! It seems for the past few weeks I have been focusing on other people's gardens that I haven't shown much of what is blooming in my own garden. So put on your walking shoes, and let's wander around to see what is brightening up my little corner of the prairie.



Everywhere you look these days, the purple coneflowers are in bloom, and my garden is no exception. They have been multiplying like crazy, threatening to take over one corner of the main garden next to the house. Next year I will have to get an earlier start on digging up and transplanting the seedlings, but I don't really mind--they are my favorite plant, and I can never have too many coneflowers.

The same is true of the roadside garden, where they are obscuring some lovely daylilies. Coneflowers are native plants and attract bees, butterflies, and other winged creatures . . . but I've mentioned this all before; if you want to know more about coneflowers, you can read my post from last year's July Bloom Day, where I focused on coneflowers more than any other plant. They also make great photo opportunities since the center makes a nice landing spot for bees and butterflies. Sadly, I haven't seen many butterflies this year, but I've taken dozens of photos of the bees on the coneflowers, including one on yesterday's post.

One plant that also has attracted bees, as I expected it would, is the bee balm, name unknown, but it is a dwarf variety. This plant's blooms have faded, but since it began blooming the day after the June Bloom Day, I thought it deserved a shot on this Bloom Day post.

Another plant that has been blooming for quite a while is the hollyhock. They began blooming about the same time the Japanese beetles arrived, so many of the leaves now look like green lace.

All my hollyhocks are the old-fashioned variety, originally planted by my husband's grandfather or from my grandmother, transplanted from my mother's garden. I don't know why I bothered to collect seeds last year, when they self-seed so easily. This hollyhock plant is the tallest and fullest of all . . . and it's growing out of my compost heap! (Shhh, don't tell anyone what a lazy composter I am.)

Last month the only daylilies I had to share were my Stella d'Oros. Thankfully, I have a few others that are now blooming, but not nearly as many as I would like--I've been envying all the beautiful daylilies I've seen on other blogs, and I intend to plant more, just as soon as I can figure out where! Above is a new one I purchased last year, and the tag is around here somewhere . . . this is another good reason to add labels to your blog posts, because I also can't find the post from last year when I planted it.

Other lilies here have no names; this one was an "accident", I think, in the midst of a planting of Stellas.

Another unknown variety, this deep rusty-red was a passlong from my aunt.

As were these. I find it hard to get the true color of reds and deep pinks to show up in my photos; dark coral is the best way to describe their true shade. Although I transplanted several of these, the rest of the lilies are planted behind the roadside coneflowers, something that needs to be remedied next year, because they really deserve to be seen by passers-by.

Another common flower, the yarrow, is surrounding this large boulder. As the blossoms fade, I just snip them off--no worries about hurting this plant:)

Also blooming for several weeks now, the Coreopsis "Moonbeam" re-blooms after a good haircut.

A new bloom since last month is the Russian Sage. Not a very good photo, but since it's a bee magnet, too, I'll have plenty of opportunities to get a better photo later.

Another plant that I can't photograph well is the Baby's Breath. I always thought this was hard to grow, but this plant has survived and thrived here for several years.

In the shade garden, the hostas are sending up blooms, too. I have many different varieties of hostas, providing a steady succession of blooms.

I know not everyone likes these blooms--after all, it's the foliage of a hosta that is the beauty of a hosta. But I like these blooms, some of them quite dainty, and I think they add some vertical interest to a shady area.


Our Bloom Day hostess, Carol, has asked what differences we are noticing in our garden this year. I think some of my flowers are blooming a little earlier than last year, but overall the biggest difference I notice is that everything is doing better this year. With the regular rainfall we have had this summer, my garden is fuller and healthier-looking than it's ever been. This butterfly weed, Asclepias Tuberosa, is just one example. Not only is it blooming, but it's probably three times the size it was last year. Now if I only had some butterflies!

Nowhere do I notice the benefits of steady rainfall as much as with the hydrangeas. I lost one "Endless Summer" over the winter, but the two older "Endless" are fuller and taller than ever before and rarely wilt in the heat. They have just begun to put out a few blooms in the last two weeks, but many more buds are showing.

The first hydrangea to bloom this year was my new macrophylla, "Let's Dance in the Moonlight." I bought this at an end-of-the season sale last year, so this is the first time I've seen its blooms. This photograph doesn't do it justice--though the plant is smaller than the "Endless Summers," the blooms are much larger and fuller. I think "Endless Summer" may have been just an infatuation; instead, I want to dance in the moonlight a little more with my new love:)

But maybe I shouldn't give my heart away too soon. There's another new beauty looming on the horizon--by the next Bloom Day, I will hopefully have some blooms to show from another new hydrangea, "Limelight."

That's the joy of gardening. While July is the height of summer blooms here, there will be something new next month.

You never know what might be peeking out of the ground next time.

To see other blooms from around the world, be sure to visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Thanks, Carol, for being such a great hostess!

The Weekend That Wasn't (And other gardening disappointments)

Photo courtesy of cityofgalena.com.

I apologize to everyone for not visiting the past few days, but I was supposed to be gone for a long weekend with my husband. The key word here is supposed, because as it turned out, I was gone for less than 24 hours. My husband, who really, really needs a vacation but is not easily persuaded to leave home, and I had made an impulsive decision to take off for the weekend. I've always wanted to visit Galena, Illinois, which is described as a quaint town overlooking the Mississippi River with historic buildings and interesting shops. It's about a four-hour drive from our house, which meant we would have almost three days to spend just relaxing and enjoying the sights. Other than seeing Galena, we had no set itinerary, so if something else struck our interest, we could change our plans and see where the road took us. We left Thursday morning, in no hurry to get anywhere, taking a spontaneous turn off the highway onto more scenic back roads to visit a site along the way and to have a relaxing lunch in a German-themed cafe. But about an hour from Galena, my husband received a call that he had to return to work the next morning to take care of an important work-related situation.


"What do you mean we have to turn around and go home???" I couldn't believe it, but there was nothing else he could do. To describe my disappointment is beyond my scope of writing talent here. It wasn't my husband's fault, but let's just say he suffered my silent rage. We had just come to the Great River Road, a highway that winds along the eastern edge of the Mississippi River, but instead of enjoying the sights, my mind raced between thoughts of alternatives--including dropping my husband off at the nearest bus station to find his own way home--and the frustrating realization that the weekend I had anticipated was not going to materialize.


By the time we got home that evening, I had sunk into a morass of self-pity that lasted for at least 36 hours. Friday morning I awoke still feeling blue, but left my suitcase packed in the hopes that Husband would come home from work saying, "let's take off today anyway." But, of course, he didn't, and a couple other distressing issues came up Friday that compounded my mood. I felt so bad that I didn't even want to read blogs, which shows you how down in the dumps I was! I slept a lot, watched a couple of movies on TV, and refused to cook. Husband tiptoed around me all day, needless to say.


Life is full of disappointments, of course, and I know none of you want to listen to me wallow in self-pity, so I thought I would turn my disappointment into a topic you can all relate to--gardening disappointments. . .How's that for a segue?!






This past spring when Beckie and I attended some gardening workshops at a local garden center, I saw these scalloped wire baskets on sale and thought I would try something new this year instead of the pre-planted hanging baskets I usually buy. To plant these, you must buy some kind of liner; in this case, the center had moss liners that were pre-formed to fit this basket. Unfortunately, I only picked up one, and when I went back all I could find were the thicker cocoa mats sold in most stores.

I filled each planter with potting soil and added some slow-release fertilizer. I planted a few "Priscilla" Supertunias, Euphorbia "Diamond Frost," and Sutera "Cabana Trailing Blue" in each one. However, planting these was not as easy as it looked. According to the instructions, you can cut a hole in the sides of the mat and "side plant" for a fuller look. The Sutera, a small flowering vine, was perfect for this, I thought, but it's not easy to cut a hole in the side and stick in the plant far enough to take root without losing a bunch of soil. And the thicker cocoa mats were so thick I had to use a boxcutter, and even then had trouble getting through all the thicknesses. After cutting that mat to fit the basket, I decided to forget about side planting and plant everything in the center of that basket.


I wish I could show you a beautiful end result, but I can't. At the moment these two baskets are looking pretty "fried," so the only picture I have is one I took about a month ago. The Priscilla petunias took off pretty well, but I think I almost killed them with too much fertilizer a month ago. At the moment, the euphorbia and the sutera are really growing, but the petunias look as though they're dying. Frankly, they've never looked the way I expected. To top it off, the planters were so heavy that anytime it rained, they bent the shepherds' hooks they were on all the way to the ground. Considering the work and the money spent on plants for these baskets, I think next year I'll go back to buying my usual pre-planted ivy geraniums and just plop them into these baskets!






At the same time I bought these baskets, I also bought this "living wreath" frame. The wire frame comes complete with a moss liner. To plant it, you pop off the wire top and take off the moss topper.











Fill the inside with potting soil and add some slow-release fertilizer. Once the soil is firmly in place, you replace the moss topper and the wire top, and you're ready to plant. You must poke holes in the moss--I used a scissors--which is much easier to work with than the thick cocoa mats. You can side plant--again for a fuller effect--but I found that a little difficult, so I stuck with placing plants at different intervals around the top to fill the wreath as much as possible.

I purchased a flat of hot pink, almost violet impatiens for the wreath, and it took all 36 plants to fill the wreath. You could use any small plant you wish, but this was the sample I saw at the garden center, and I liked the finished result. The instructions that came with the wreath form weren't very clear, so I checked out some websites for more specific instructions and found many other ideas for plantings. One of the most popular was to use small sedums instead. Of course, this would be much more expensive, but perhaps you could keep the wreath for years--don't take my advice on that; I'm just guessing.

Again, the end result was not exactly what I had hoped for. I took this picture just a few weeks after planting the wreath, so it has filled out somewhat since then. But I imagined this wreath full of masses of pink blooms, and that has never happened. I've watered it frequently--a trick in itself--but the impatiens have never bloomed in the way that they usually do for me. It's hanging on my front porch, and from a distance it looks like a wreath of moss, which is not all bad, I guess. I'm not quite as disappointed in it as my baskets and will probably try it again next year. Any suggestions for increasing the blooms, though, would be appreciated!

One more, definitely minor disappointment . . .the hosta buds I showed for Bloom Day a week ago opened into these beautiful flowers on Thursday morning. I saw them but was in too much of a hurry packing for my "long weekend" to take a photo. When I thought of them again this morning and took out my camera, the blooms were already fading. Oh my goodness, one really has to "seize the day" with these blooms! The good thing, though, is that another hosta of the same variety has yet to open its buds, so I will be ready with camera in hand for that one!

To leave you with a more uplifting note, I think I have found one sure cure for a minor case of the blues. Last night I made up my mind to finally go see the movie "Mamma Mia." I was all set to go by myself because no one else was available and I thought I'd punished my husband enough. But at the last minute my oldest granddaughter, who turns 13 on Tuesday, said she'd like to go with me. She likes musicals almost as much as I do and in the last year has become my "theater date." Although the critics--mostly male, I think--didn't like the movie, I thought it was the most enjoyable movie I've seen in a long time. An upbeat plot, great music, and some comic scenes make you forget any troubles you might have and will have you leaving the theater with a smile on your face, humming the title song. Colin Firth didn't have as big a part as I had hoped, but he was still pretty funny and endearing. Pierce Brosnan can't sing, but who cares! I give him three stars for trying anyway. If you're one of the last women in the country, like me, who hasn't seen the movie, by all means take the time and see it before it leaves the theater.

And now I'm off on another trip, one that won't disappoint me--visiting all the people in Blog Land that I've missed lately. Oh, and I need to unpack that suitcase.