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.


 

Lily of the Nile

There they are, the record number of five blooming stalks on my Agapanthus, 'Stevies Wonder.'  So far they have survived the deer, which has been absent since all of the July 4th fireworks were set off by neighbors.  Last year the deer chomped off the heads of buds as they were opening.

Today, we found evidence that the deer came around the end of the fence with our neighbor on the north, because it clewed off a few roses.  It paused to empty its bowels behind the house, and wandered through the labyrinth.  It nibbled on a few of the celosia, just starting to set buds, before leaving.  Such rude and impudent behavior.

We have put in three tall metal fence posts, strung fish line among them, and added three short posts that disappear in the day lilies to poke its legs.  Will it be enough?  I hope so.

Just in case I got these photos, even though all of the buds haven't opened all the way.  I want some documentation that they were here!

There is a lot more blooming.  Near the leg of the bench you can see the orange flowers of the Crocosmia 'Star of the East.  In the bottom right corner are the celosia seedlings, bravely growing in the face of evil predatory deer.

But today I rejoice in my Lily of the Nile!
 

Summer Flowers

With days of steady heat and humidity, the garden is settling down into more cautious growth.  We finished our first thorough watering of the labyrinth area, and will now be monitoring each section, using soaker hoses as necessary, and spot watering those areas that need it.  Some of the newly planted perennials have been lost because we didn't realize how much water they needed for the first few weeks.  Most are doing fine.

There have been a few butterflies passing through.  This one stayed around for a day before moving on to tastier options.  There have been fewer butterflies than many years in the past, for unknown reasons. 

The day lilies in the North garden, far from the rampaging teeth of the deer, are doing well.  They will need to be divided and replanted in the fall, and some either given away or move to new locations.  I can see them from my desk as I write this, through the porch door.  There should be enough buds to last for a month before they wind down. 

We have been keeping the deer away with smelly sprays, and placing the garden cart across one of its favorite paths.  I am not sure how long those strategies will last.  I hope that the Lily of the Nile, with 6 fat buds, gets a chance to bloom.  All got eaten off last year.

The early Hardy Hibiscus is open and blooming.  The three hibiscus varieties provide major color through the summer and into the fall.  I have been battling slugs, and the deer chewing off buds this year, but for now the pests are in abeyance. 

Wow, I think that is the first time I have used one of my Word Power words from high school.  Do you remember that first set starting with "a?"  Abate, aberration, abet, abeyance . . .  Of course, as I typed that in, I had to check the spelling of aberration because I used two "b's" and one "r!"  So much for Word Power!

Back to the garden.  Fortunately, the grass is growing very slowly and doesn't need mowing.  And I have no chigger bites so far, so our very cold winter appears to have brought them under control!

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.