FIRST FLOWERS OF SUMMER!! Early July Edition :)

Summer is in full swing now and the flowers are going strong. Lots to look at and I'm already getting ideas for next year. Each year I try to see where my gardens are weak and buy plants to fill in the weakness for the next year. Right now my Honeylocust garden is on the weak side. It's hard though to find flowering plants for shade that aren't hosta and blooming now. If anyone has suggestions, I'll gladly check them out.

Pics for now:

I posted my first ROS Blue Satin bloom just for all you ROS haters out there....I'm lookin at you Sally!
Mimulus Alatus
NOID Dahlia
Ruellia humilis
Rhododendron Maximum

Rhexia virginica
Ligularia 'Little Rocket' this guy didn't bloom last year but it's just starting and looks great
Physostegia
Helenium 'Mardi Gras' just starting to bloom
Monarda 'Raspberry Wine' huge clump that will need to get divided in the spring

Monarda and Agastache 'black adder' super tall, probably 5'
Red Coneflower
The middle of our Front Yard garden and a bunch going on
Orange Coneflower and helianthus
The west side of the Front Yard garden

I'll admit the Blue Satin is pretty, and all your other flowers as well! Nice planting and photography. The Rhexia looks like an interesting flower

Yeah I can't wait for next year with the Rhexia. It should be bigger than it is and bloom a little later but it was a first year plant from Plant Delights.

love the 4th dark lily pic Holly. do you know what the ID is on that one? just curious... I love the dark chocolate colors. Love your glads so far too. I've never tried growing them except for a few here and there. Nothing this year... Do you dig them up at the end of the season?

Seq, I just noticed that our ROS started blooming here too. Your gardens look great

one of our basil plants started blooming before all the rest and the leaves are shiny and smoother than our usual plants that I started from seeds from Critter. You can see it still has the serrated edges. Reminds me of how coleus can sport different patterns, this basil emerged from the same group as all the others but is different. interesting

Today's Lily Gallery

'Muscadet'
'Mona Lisa'
'Triumphator'
'Sorbonne'

Other new blooms

Birdhouse Gourd
Wild Petunia
Phlox 'Katherine'
Blue Balloon Flower
Double Pimk Balloon Flower

Holly, your glads are gorgeous! I'm afraid mine have gotten all floppy and I'm feeling quite frustrated with them. Nice to see what they can look like! :-)

Seq, I love your coneflower mixed with the agastache and the monarda--very pretty together! :-)

GT, the 'Triumphator' is really beautiful! And I love the double pink balloon flower--I have never seen a double one before; very pretty! :-)

Wind, Sorry No ID on that daylily. We have been digging up the glads each fall but last year I didn't finish getting them all and the ones that didn't get dug up came back. If they could survive last winter then I won't be digging them up any more.

Sequoia, the ROS I have is also 'Blue Satin'. I got it last year and haven't seen it bloom yet, so thanks for the picture! Somewhere you posted about wanting to know about anything that would be blooming right now in shade. As you can see from greenthumb's pictures, and I can say the same for my shade garden, the Asiatic, Oriental, and Orienpet lilies bloom this time of year and actually do fantastic in the shade!

very pretty greenthumb. Is the wild petunia fragrant? Or can you even tell, all the lilies must be wonderful there.

Daylilies here seem to be taking their time, or taking turns. Waiting on Casablanca lily and tiger lily.
I rounded up cut flowers for the table yesterday and came up with Stokesia aster, threadleaf coreopsis, black eyed susan R hirta, an almost done Endless summer hydrangea, some ferns fronds, Verbena bonariensis ( sorry don't know a common name there but very wiry airy stems with clusters of tiny purple bloom on top) perilla foliage and variegated liriope leaves.

Sounds like a lovely cut flower combo Sally! :-)

Ooh, Sally, do you have a picture of the flower arrangement?

I can't bring in cut flowers because my cat would promptly chomp down on them and then cough them up, leaving me little presents all around the house.

presents, ugh! I'm really lucky that I have three pets which don't barf much, especially my iron stomach dog who never gets sick; my neighbor has horror stories of pet mess.

I'll try to do picture. Actually, DD has taken 5-6 various small jars and bottles, and painted bottom half white. I used them to make several small casual groups, just one or two item per bottle.

Off topic sort of- I think it looks funny when people carry ipads around at tourists events, and take picture with them, but I do see the appeal, of easy posting pictures and adding text. I wish I could take a picture with the laptop. Phone is easy to take pictures, several steps to get ready to post, and the typing on the phone is not easy.

unngghhhh... I took picture on phone, I cropped and saved, discarded uncropped versions...now my phone won't connect to home wifi...............well, I could go up and get my camera, take more picture, hook up to computer..or I could try to work on this article that's been in my 'work mode' for two weeks already. Duty calls! Later...

Sequoia: I really like the Rhexia and found seeds -- http://www.hardyplants.com/seeds/RHVI-A3.html -- but then realized it likes it moist and sunny. I see it variably described as needing part shade -- and needing sun. Where have you located yours? Moisture seems to be required (oh-oh for my yard).

Sally: Is Verbena bonariensis very seedy for you? I'm trying to limit new acquisitions to natives but this is tempting me (it is South African). I found seeds....

Happy I have verbena bonariensis Lollipop and have not found it seedy at all. The pollinators really like it especially skippers.

Harry trimmed our hedge yesterday and got 6 bee stings!!! yikes. After he sprayed himself with deep woods off no bees went near him! there must be a nest somewhere in there. wonder how landscape guys do it!! never know what's lurking in peoples hedges lol

wow Holly, can't believe your glads survived the winter. that's great. maybe I'll try them too

nice pics greenthumb. never saw a double pink balloon flower before

1) daylily 'Cisty'
2) double whatever
3) purple d'oro
4) fragrant oriental trumpet lily. not sure of ID, may be 'Orania'

Happy--

You coming this way soon? You know why.....

We can go out for lunch nearby....MD Home and Flower is having
crazy clearance---buy one on sale--get one free...Market packs--$1.
Any remaining veggies--FREE!

Gita

Wind--

my neighbor--Olga--who is NOT a gardener of any sort--planted some Glads
last year. her soil is always dry and hard to dig into.
She dug just deep enough hole to put the bulbs into. (supposed to be about 5").

ALL her Glads came up this year too--never mind the horrible winter!

Mine are still growing leaves. I planted them very late.

I am leaving all mine in for the winter...Why bother?

G.

Verbena bonariensis has behaved itself very nicely, reseeds itself 'just enough' that I have the same amount every year, and skippers do love it. Extremely 'airy' so needs something to fill around it. Mine has Plumbago leadwort around it, and purple Perilla nearby. and Peony foliage.

I have heard that Buddleia butterfly bush is invasive- I think this year I now know it. I've found several things in the vegetable bed that look like little butterfly bushes, and I use butterfly bush trimmings all over as 'pea brush' type stakes.

thanks Gita. by the way, did Olga's fig tree come back from the base? just curious. ours is still sending up new shoots!!

Also, since we have been so dry, one of our new cherry trees doesn't look so hot. It pretty much is dying from dryness... just finally watered it today, but may be too late. It's in a spot far from the house.

Sally, I've never found buddleia to be invasive since we have winters. In fact, several didn't come back from last winter; shrubs that we've had for over 10 years too. I was pretty surprised. I have found an occasional self seeded plant too. For invasive, lets talk trumpet vine!! lol

Wind--yes,both of the Figs did...Looks like a small bush by now....

How many years will it be now till it fruits? Three? Four?

My cutting is growing very well. It is over a foot tall...
Wonder who will inherit it now that everyone's Figs are re-sprouting????

It had such a deep meaning to them all before the dead Figs
started re-sprouting everywhere...

NOT me! Maybe his son will take it. he was pretty devastated...
G.

Beautiful lilies, Wind! I especially like 'Cisty'--such a soft, delicate color.

Yes, very airy on the verbena! I have mine in front of all the thick yarrow and tall monarda.

Photo of my Verbena bonariensis. A skipper is landing on one of the verbena blossoms (right under the pincushion flower blossom).

Wind: that Purple d Oro looks great! I like the contrast in purples from the in dr and outer petals.

I guess you're right Terri, I never considered planting lilies in the shade. So they really don't mind full shade?

Happy: my the is planted in mostly/part sun. The sun it gets is the hot afternoon sun. I just planted it so it really hasn't taken off yet due to more shade from it's neighbors. Next year it should be able to play with the big guys.

Jeff, it was a few years ago that Stormy, a mid-atlantic DGer, posted about how well lilies do in the shade. I had never even considered them because I just assumed they required full sun. I'm sure glad I tried them. They are so different from the typical shade garden stuff and make quite a colorful impact this time of year. I think David and Pat saw the same post and that is what got them to try lilies too. We've both been having great success as long as the deer stay away from them LOL.

Seq, that really is a giant patch of monarda! My Raspberry Wine is in a much smaller side bed, so I need to thin it out carefully before it overtakes its neighbor.

I just realized yesterday that Raspberry Wine is almost the exact same color as my crape myrtle. They're blooming at the same time, just a few feet from each other... as if I'd planned it! LOL

I'm loving all of these daylily bloom pics. I have such a love/hate relationship with daylilies, but there's something so cheery about daylilies in bloom.

Greenthumb, how are your balloon flowers not flopping over? I think my clay soil may have a tendency to hold onto nitrogen exceptionally well. Pretty much all of my plants are taller than advertised, and floppier, too!

That's good to know about lilies and shade!

Sally, that's interesting about your buddleja. I haven't yet noticed any reseeding with mine, but things are always changing in a garden...

How are people's lupinus perennis doing from the group buy? Is anyone having any luck with it? I've been having trouble with mine, finding the right spot for it. But it's host for an amazing number of different butterflies, and I'd really like to figure out how to make it work in my yard.

I never found Buddleia seedling in 20 years, right under the bushes. Go figure! Maybe I'm wrong on my mystery plants.

Catmint, I think some of the recent Buddelia cultivars are sterile, or nearly sterile.

I heard butterfly bushes were a huge nuisance in warmer climates, but not necessarily in MD.

I never thought much about invasive species until my neighborhood started clearing out a wooded parkland in our development. It's full of Japanese honeysuckle and some sort of euonymus. Yuck!

I'm seriously considering throwing out Asclepias syriaca seeds in that area.

Some of the balloon flowers are sort of sprawled out on the ground, but others are standing up. We sure don't baby them, so no idea what is up with them. Actually, now that I think about it, the more sprawled ones are what I planted many years ago, and the others including the double pink, are David's work. He takes great care to put good dirt in the hole. We have clay too, and I am just not that careful.

We didn't notice any smell to the wild petunia.

SSG, A. syriacus seeds sound perfect for that wooded parkland area in your development. ;-)

That's really interesting Terri, I'm going to have to do more research on that. I like that they are just a bulb too so I can plant them amongst my tiarella without having to tear any up.

I'm going to pull out some of my Raspberry Wine in the spring SSG. I want to see where it goes over the winter first but I should have a bunch for the spring swap for sure.

Greenthumb and Ecnalg, how's your crocosmia doing? Do you have any other varieties besides Lucifer? Is anyone else growing crocosmia?

I just read that they are hummingbird magnets so I'm interested in getting them next year. I see hummingbirds by the beebalm at least every other day, which means they're probably out there more often than than. I need to plant more food for them!

Did you buy them as bulbs?

There are 2 in bloom now, and they're quite tall. We have several more, but they are all the Lucifer. We got them perhaps 5 years ago when a gardening friend was moving. The following year we didn't see any sign of them and thought they didn't make it. Took a couple of years for them to decide that they liked it here and would bloom. They are tall.

Would love to see photos of your Crocosmia if you get a chance, Ecnalg and Greenthumb.

My Crocosmia 'Lucifer' is just about ready to bloom (bulbs from the Glad buy). I also have a 'Fire King' (from Typ) which is still shooting up.

Thanks for the update, ecnalg! That's so interesting that they disappeared for so long.

Catmint, I'm looking forward seeing your crocosmia blooms! I didn't realize we ordered crocosmias with our glad order! I missed out!

Cat--My Crocosmia Lucifer is not even up yet....Can you post pics of the foliage?

I know I was late planting everything--BUT--geez! I should see them peeking by now....

G.