Oops! I am so used to posting on M-W-F that I completely forgot I was going to share my flowers every day for a week. Here are a few early summer drama queens to help me get back on track. Lilium 'Forever Susan.'
L. canadense
L. martagon 'Claude Shride"
To see what other garden bloggers are sharing during this "Week of Flowers," visit the blog of our host Cathy at Words and Herbs.
My Ligularia and tall Thalictrums were all in bloom at this point in the summer for the last two years. Another sign of how the weather has everything on a different schedule this year. At the moment it's lightly raining but it looks like we're soon going to pass through the big hole in the center of this storm. Aargh, my garden is dry as a bone. But there are some lovely bright floral spots:
Lilium canadense are still performing.
But July in the Midwest is daylily season, Hemerocallis 'Petite Sioux'
H. 'Lady Inora' with Astilbe taquerii 'Superba'
H. 'Little Rainbow'
Euphorbia 'Ascot Rainbow' is Zone 6 but my last plant returned for a few years. So I'm giving it another try.
I'm still in thrall to my new Hydrangea serrata 'Mountain Mania'
Hakonechloa grass with Sedum 'Matrona'. I like it best at this stage before the flowers have really opened.
Hostas are beginning to bloom, along with Alliums and a few sporadic Geraniums here and there. In my garden, mid-July is more of a foliage than a flower moment.
Two orange lilies just opened across the path from each other. They could not be more different or create more opposite moods.This is an Asiatic lily, 'Forever Susan.' I personally call her 'Suddenly Susan.' When she opens, the garden is suddenly transformed. The word 'forever' makes me think of something old and delicate which 'Susan' definitely is not.
Across the path is Lilium canadense, a very delicate beauty. This one is in its first season and is not very tall. I have a small group of this lily in red, yellow and orange. Once you discover these lilies you will be hooked.
A week ago I grabbed the last of the candelabra primroses and the first Martagon lily to make a quick arrangement for the living room. Stems of Heuchera flowers and an Allium complete the group.
Allium atropurpureum is new for me this year. The flower head is not fully round but more of a bowl shape with a narrow base. The color is dark and intense. Its companion Allium still hasn't opened.
I love matching and contrasting flower color with the little strokes of color on this vase from Madison's Studio Paran.
The 90°F. temperatures at the beginning of this last week popped all the Martagon lilies, so I had no qualms about cutting them or the Alliums from my traffic island bed. I used them to make a deck vase for the 2022 Garden Bloggers Fling visit to our garden on Saturday. It's still looking good.
I made a quick run out to K&A Nursery to pick up a special order Hydrangea that had come in. When I went inside to pay for it, I fell prey to temptation and snagged this Begonia.
The flowers and foliage caught my eye but the stems are the real stars of this show. Alas, no id tag. I used it to block a clump of dead tree trunks as you enter the back garden for the tour. Yes, I know. Totally obsessive behavior.
I've been frantically trying to cope with the weather to keep my plants alive and the garden weeded and prepped for the Garden Bloggers Fling group coming to my garden this weekend. Two days in the 90°s last week and more of the same Monday and Tuesday. I was out just after 5 am yesterday morning to weed and water while the temps were bearable. I went in by 8:30.
Leaves on many plants are turning brown and crisp from the heat. Other plants are bursting in and out of bloom in a matter of days. Hoping my Martagon lilies last until the weekend but I have my doubts.
I'll be back next week when the temps should be lower and I can relax and play in the garden.
My spring-blooming witch hazel, Hamamelis vernalis, sent up a bunch of suckering stems that I finally got around to cutting out. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the foliage was lovelier than it ever is on the shrub when it emerges in the spring or colors up in the autumn. I immediately decided those stems were worthy of spending some time being admire in a vase indoors.
Once that little project was done, I walked across the driveway to cut down some of the seedpods of my red Martagons, Lilium martagon 'Claude Shride'. Unlike my peachy flowered variety, these seed pods were as unexpectedly beautiful as the Hamamelis foliage.
The pods provided the perfect companion for the suckering stems.
One quick and easy bouquet and one that I am enjoying as much as any I've put together all summer.
I have had great luck with Martagon lilies from the start; but much more limited results with the other lilies I've planted. I planted a group of 'Fusion' lilies in with my Maidenhair ferns, picturing them blooming above all that lacy green foliage. Turns out that was too much shade and competition. I managed to find and dig out a couple of the bulbs and moved them to a much sunnier spot. Voila! Now I just have to try to find some more of the hidden bulbs.
This is my first try at growing Lilium canadense and I am thrilled with the results.
They are the sweetest and most fragile looking of all the different lilies I've tried.
The yellow ones got knocked over in a storm. I'm going to try to get a few more orange and some of the deep red ones next.
I planted 5 bulbs of the American native Turk's cap flower, Lilium superbum, a few years ago with mixed results.
The squirrels dug out 3 of the bulbs and transplanted them in my neighbor's yard, where they grew better and bloomed earlier than the ones left in my garden.
Last fall I planted a few more but nothing appeared this year but the original two stems. Can't decide if I should try again or quit while I'm ahead.
I've heard this is a difficult one to grow and I have to agree.
Back in the 1960s, I loved wearing bright colors like hot pink and orange. I remember I had an orange wool dress with white trim and a dress whose fabric was printed with big orange flowers.
But orange in my garden? I've mostly steered clear of that color other than Asiatic and species lilies. But suddenly I am noticing that I have orange in a number of long-time favorite plants and I seem to be adding more and more of that color.
Hecherella 'Hopscotch' is a villosa hybrid which means it copes with hot, humid summer weather. i love the fact that it really holds its color all season.
I have Heucheras all over the garden. They've been moved and divided so many times that I can rarely identify them anymore. I believe this one is H. 'Pinot Grigot', planted to echo the Berberis thunbergii 'Admiration' on the far side of the Peony. Most of the orange flowers and foliaged plants are around the Tea House to complement its color.
'Amber Jubilee' Ninebark (Physocarpus) has orangish, bronze new foliage. My shrub would like more sun so its color is not as intense as it might be. The shade has also kept it a size to easily fit into the garden. I am always pruning it for shape and that produces the nice bronze color, though it means I never get flowers. This is what it looks like at the moment; not quite as bright as when the first leaves appear.
I've been growing Spirea japonica 'Magic Carpet' for years. I love that I can cut it to the ground to keep it the size and shape I want. It also makes great cut foliage for flower arrangements.
I added Hydrangea serrata 'Mountain Madness' this year, specifically for its orange new foliage that fades to yellow through the season. The lace cap flowers are a very delicate peachy pink. I fell in love with it from the moment it arrived from Issima Nursery.
I've been growing Penthorum seloides aka Starfruit at the edge of the pond for years. But I'm not sure if it will survive without its roots actually growing down into the water. There is one small clump remaining after all the re-design work Mark has been doing on the pond edge; we'll see if it stays the course.
I don't think you can garden in the Midwest without growing daylilies. Many people like the really large-flowered varieties. I like the little dwarf types like Hemerocallis 'Petite Sioux'.
Hemerocallis 'Lady Inora' is bigger than 'Petite Sioux' but I believe she still falls into the dwarf category.
I've always wanted to have poppies in the garden. Last year I put in Papever atlanticum, a Spanish poppy that is a very bright orange.
The only orange grouping not near the Tea House is this trio by the red front door. Bowman's Root (left), Berberis thunbergii 'Orange Rocket' and Japanese Blood Grass 'Red Baron' are at their most dramatic peak in the fall rather than the spring.
Back in 2006 I saw Martagon lilies in a local garden and fell for them. I bit the bullet and bought three bulbs of 'Mrs. R. O. Backhouse' from Klehm's Song Sparrow Nursery. They cost a whopping 3/$56.00 and I was very nervous at spending that kind of money on plants, let alone bulbs.
But Mrs. Backhouse has been a workhorse since the day she arrived. I now have a huge sweep of them. Some time ago I moved two groups of bulbs onto the slope below the Tea House. They have done so well that I dug them out yesterday. Both groups were planted near little trees which have now engulfed them. It's had to believe that the almost invisible little Hemlock by the lilies in this photo is now a bigger presence than the bulbs.
I assumed that the plants looked so tall because they were growing on a slope above me. Nope. They are easily 5 and a half feet tall. They are going over quickly in the heat, so I didn't feel too bad about digging them out.
But I was surprised to discover one of the bulbs had sent out bulblets and the whole thing had grown together in a huge clump of six connected stems. I am going to replant them in the Tea House garden but in locations where they hopefully won't have to get moved again.
Our prolonged hot weather has meant that many flowers are blooming together which do not usually appear at the same time. I've been cutting them to enjoy indoors rather than let the heat do them in as soon as they open. Thus I am combining my vases with Bloom Day.
Itoh intersectional Peony ' Border Charm' with Heuchera flowers
Peonies are satisfying at every stage from emerging foliage to seed pods.
I moved the vase away from the gold Japanes screen on the wall to get a photo of the true color.
This is a Victorian brass vase on a stand, probably Chinese. I thought it was a good match for the flower which has a bit of an over-the-top Victorian flavor.
Heuchera flowers don't make much of an impression in the garden, but I love them in a bouquet.
Allium 'Forelock'
Lilium martagon 'Claude Shride' in the red room. Another impossible location to take a good photo. But I can never resist the red on red effect.
This glass vase by Richard Jones of the late Studio Paran has different designs on the front and back.
Both sides, however, have a thin red line which makes this my go-to vase for red flowers.
A Peony whose petals are gone and is quickly turning to seeds in the center. Love this moment with Peonies.