After a Summer Rain

 

This year the rain has been fairly regular for us, encouraging everything to grow generously.  Yesterday's 1.23 inches continued the trend, even though the days before were very hot and dry.

Over the last few years this Crocosmia, 'Star of the East,' has been spreading throughout the Feather Reed Grass, Karl Foerster.  It is hard to weed but looks wonderful with the long display of orange flowers.

All of the hardy hibiscus have been stunning in size.  This one, Cherry Choco Latte has reached 6 feet, and has been swarming with bees, butterflies and the occasional Japanese Beetle.  The beetles are dropped into a plastic cup filled with soapy water.

The Sedum Autumn Fire is already showing its buds.  However, we are not sure if those buds will survive the browsing by the deer.  Each year we lose some or all of them.  At least it looks wonderful now without the flowers.  

Finally, there is this intriguing little, no I mean BIG, caterpillar for the Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly.  I had to look it up to determine its adult appearance.  I do have a few hanging out in the labyrinth.  I will need to watch out for its chrysalis and make sure it is safe.

These photos are all from my new "used" camera that my brother sold me.  It gets great images, and all kinds of functions I am still learning to use.

Summer Colors

The center of the labyrinth is showing many colors in the middle of the summer.  The cool blue of the Agapanthus, the intense red of the Hibiscus and the glowing orange of the Crosocmia are competing for the eyes of each viewer.  Even in the bright mid-day sunshine the colors are bold. 

Many gardeners and nurseries like soft, pastel colors.  In some gardens with less intense light and more shade, those colors are subtle and relaxing.  But even with trees and bushes getting taller and offering shade, most of the labyrinth is dazzled by the sun.  It needs colors and flowers that can hold their own, and not wash out.

I adore the true blue of the Agapanthus Stevie's Wonder.  This butterfly was certainly adoring sipping nectar out of its flowers.  There were also different bees reaping the sweet harvest, though some seemed to be struggling to get far enough down into the funnel to reach the good stuff.

While individual flowers may die and fall off the cluster, many buds are forming to replace them.

The Crocosmia Star of the East is putting on its show next to the bench.  It is nice to sit down and reach over to tip the flower up and look into its throat.  This variety is doing a bit of wandering around, even trying to grow into the grass walkway.  I now have enough individual pieces that I will move some into other sections of the beds and see how they do.  I could use more of this intense orange around to provide a spark of color.  I will look for a place that gets more sunshine that this spot under the tree; it gets shade most of the afternoon.

Then there is the Hibiscus Walter Fleming with its deeply creased, heavy textured flowers with the bright yellow stamens.  I have gushed about this one over the years.  It suffered a set back when the white tailed rat chewed off a few dozen flower buds several weeks ago.  But it is stubbornly coming back.

We have been using a foul smelling repellant to keep away the deer and rabbits. It helps.  I did see this morning the deer had eaten off all of the gladiolus flowers, but there was not a major intrusion into other areas.  We have added a number of physical barriers, which shift it out of its habitual paths, however, there is no way to surround everything with the high fence that would be needed.

Like life, a garden needs to be enjoyed a day at a time.  Appreciate each flower and plant, because there is no way to know what tomorrow will bring.  It has been a good summer, with lots of time to be outside caring for everything in cooler than normal weather.   For that I am thankful.


 

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. 

August Details

As the summer moves along, many of the plants are becoming worn out and tattered by the weather, insects, roving wild beasts, and sometimes the lawnmower.  This jewel, a Crocosmia ‘Star of the East,’ is an exception.  This variety, only planted two years ago, is wandering freely from its original spot about three feet to the north of the bench.  But it is difficult to stay angry when it has such cheerful orange flowers.  It is hard to find bright, intense flowers that can hold their own with the brightness of the August sunlight. 

The popular taste in colors, if the nursery catalogs are any indication, are soft, subtle shades.  Those are fine in shady areas, or in hazy weather where the sun is blocked.  But they become all washed out when the sun is hot and brilliant.

The Japanese Cedars are covered with fine cobwebs.  It is as if someone had discovered that artificial stuff used at Halloween and went crazy draping it over and through the bushes.  They provide quite the contrast to the dark green needles.

Starting in September I will become very busy with training for a new career.  It may keep me away from the garden more than usual; I really don't know for sure.  Whenever possible, I will take the camera out and see what is there to be discovered.  It will provide a respite, and hopefully there will be time to show what I have found.  So be patient if the time between posting new entries is longer than usual.

Crocosmias!

I have been in love with the dramatic color and form of Crocosmias for years.  Starting in the middle of June, when the late spring flowers are bowing down to the heat of the summer, these glorious perennials start blooming.  By having different varieties, that bloom can extend for several weeks, through July, and even into September.

I will start with 'Lucifer.'  The brilliant red-orange color, on the top of 3-4 foot tall stems hold their color in the intense sun that straddles the summer equinox.  Having a garden which only receives shade from the small tree planted in its center, it is important to select colors and plants that can deal with the intense sun. With the wiry stems, the flowers seem to be floating above the long, narrow leaves.

This large clump of plants started a a few corms 4 years ago.  In that short time they have multiplied and spread out rapidly, creating a large drift of foliage.  In fact, one of my favorite nurseries warns that Lucifer "actually crowds itself out so quickly that it rarely flowers after the first year in warm climate gardens."

I have not had that problem, yet, but I have had the problem of too much sun. Here you can see that same foliage, just weeks later, after it has endured too much sun and too little water.  I once thought that if I just watered it enough, everything would stay green and beautiful. But I no longer think that is true about this variety.  I need to move this into somewhere else in the labyrinth with less sun.  If is really does keep multiplying too fast, requiring annual sorting and replanting, I will probably get rid of them. It would be  shame, because I love it, but there are many others that I have been trying.  So, there are three others.

Here is the clump of 'Walrhead' which I purchased and planted in spring 2010.  Again, there were 2-3 corms, which have multiplied somewhat, but not as aggressively as the Lucifer.  The plants are much shorter than the Lucifer, with leaves reaching up to about 2 feet.  I am disappointed in that the flowers begin blooming much more down within the foliage, but it is still early in its bloom cycle.  The flowers didn't begin opening until the second week in July, almost a month after Lucifer.  Last year the period of new flowers was relatively short, but it was still establishing itself, so I hope it will live up to the description that it will continue to bloom until September.

Here is a close-up of the flowers.  The petals open up wider, and face outward, creating a more substantial presence than the tubular and upward facing flowers of Lucifer.  The color is not a bold, but still keeps its power when the full sun hits them. More importantly, there seems to be no problem with the foliage turning brown from either too much sun or too little water.  I hope that is true, because I cannot control the sun, and even with our attempts to keep things watered, there is little that can be done when there are periods of drought, like this summer.  The soil is very sandy, and doesn't hold water.

But there are more to discuss, so moving on.

Here is 'Star of the East' which was purchased last year.  Plant Delight nursery describes this as a 1912 introduction, which says pretty amazing things about its good qualities.  What I have noticed is how far it has thrown out new plants in just the year.  I only planted one set of corms, and you can clearly see two clusters about six inches apart, and there is a third behind them.  It has yet to reach the 32 inches in the catalog description, and there are only a few flower stems, but it has only been one year.  I planted this near the bench, and the flowers really do well with a close inspection.

See!

As you might have figured out by now, I have a lot of pictures to show.  That is because I kept taking pictures, but never got around to putting them up for you to see.

So jumping ahead, the final Crocosmia is 'Solfateree' which was also added into the garden last year.

This is clearly a much later blooming variety, just beginning to open its flowers past the middle of July.  It is significantly less prolific than the other varieties, with only a few new corms in the year.  It is staying much shorter than the others also, and I am uncertain about how it will do in the labyrinith.  So, I will need to just watch, wait and see.