Snow and Fire

It is almost the end of June, and many flowers are at their peak.  Your eyes are drawn to the scarlet color of the Crocosmia 'Lucifer' in the foreground of this picture.  They stand out against all of the surrounding green foliage while reaching out over the pathway.  Walking the labyrinth this time of year requires pushing aside flowers and leaves that just don't have enough room in the narrow beds!

What catches my eye are the large white blossoms of the Crape Myrtle, Lagerstroemia 'Faurie Fantasy.'  I am constantly amazed by how beautiful it is when flowering.  The plan was for it to grow up alongside the sun porch, to screen the view of our neighbor's house, which it has fulfilled in its twelve years.  What I had not anticipated was being able to look out of the porch windows and see those flower clusters a few feet away.  It also provides a lot of shade, which helps keep that south side of the house much cooler.

We have had a new series of nibbling pests working at the lower level.  Rabbits!  The neighbors say there has been a flood of them across the area.  We had not realized how much the foxes kept them under control, and we haven't seen a fox in years. The rabbits have nibbled at some Celosia seedlings.  Don't worry Sis, a few have escaped damage and the nibbled ones seem to be trying to put up new side stems.

They also attacked several Portulaca, not just chewing them but digging them up!  The Portulaca were planted under the standard cedar, at the lower right side of this photo.  Hubby wanted to experiment with the bright red flowers among the intense yellow of the Moneywort, Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea.’  They are a bit fluorescent together, but hold their color in the intense sunlight.

There are a few renegade Crocosmia 'Lucifer' that stayed behind in this section.  I thought I had gotten them all, but for a few years, a small number in this location will be fine, until they try to take over the bed again.

In the background the smoke bush is still blooming, though sections of the filaments are starting to pull off.  So are other earlier flowers starting to fade, but that is the rhythm of a garden. 

View from the Bedroom

This is the view out our bedroom window in June.  Lots of different types, sizes and colors of leaves with occasional flowers appearing for a short time.  It gets much more shade than the rest of the yard, partly because of its location on the north side of the house.  But it also has a 20 foot 'Little Gem' Magnolia on the northwest corner, and a Japanese Snowbell in the middle.  Some of the branches of the snowbell are visible on the upper left side of this photo.

I also call this the hidden garden, because most of the time the wandering deer do not find their way into it.  So it has lots of Hostas and day lilies.  Just this morning I looked out the kitchen window to see a young deer walking into the labyrinth.  When I opened the front door, it looked at me casually and didn't move until I was stepping off the front porch to push it out.  The dog had no clue, so she didn't help anything. 

Visible on the right of this photo is Hydrangea Serrata 'Blue Bird.'  When I saw it at the nursery, growing among acidic soil under a pine tree, the blue color was intense.  Growing it alongside the foundation, I have to constantly add aluminum sulphate to the soil to keep the blue.  As you can see in the close-up below, I haven't put any on recently, and that is okay since I like the variation in color also.

That Bush is Smoking!

Most people are familiar with the tree versions of Continus coggygria, with their 20 foot tall heights and powder puff flowers.  This is a dwarf version, named 'Young Lady' that I originally bought from the National Arboretum nine years ago.  It is only now reaching five feet.

I tried a few locations before it settled into this one, and has been quite dramatically blooming for a few years now.  In this shot the whole bush appears to be glorying in the light of the setting sun.  They grab onto the sunlight, glowing from within.

These massive and delicate clusters of fine fibers are soft to touch, while hiding almost all of the leaves in their 2-3 week height of bloom. Only a few new shoots with bright green leaves are visible.

Here you can see how the thousands of fine, translucent fibers float above the thin stems to create that effect. 

It is quite satisfying to have this eye catcher when most of the spring bloomers are trying to produce seeds.  Of course, I am cutting them off as soon as possible so the plants can build themselves up for next year.  The hardy hibiscus are putting up their tall stems, and getting ready for their display, but it is still a few weeks away.

Purple Milkweed

Five years ago I purchased several seedlings of Purple Milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens) from a local native plant nursery.  There were maybe 4-5, each less than 4 inches tall.  The first year there were no flowers, and I wasn't sure they would survive, but the did.  Slowly they grew in size and the number of flowers, until last June I featured them for the first time on this blog.

Now they have taken off.  They are no longer individual plants, but are spreading out into a clump that needs to be managed.  I had to pull out several plants that had developed from roots a couple feet away from the clump because they were threatening one of the hardy hibiscus plants.

I am considering removing all of the other plants in this section of the bed, to give it over to these common, yet wonderful, flowers.  I will wait and see.  This is a host plant for butterfly caterpillars, so they could get pretty ugly looking if they are found.  Yet, I wouldn't mind having that problem if it encouraged more butterflies.