August Garden Blog Bloom Day

So this month the heat and lack rain has taken it's toll on my blooms. A few things are struggling along in the "sun" area. It's on the margin of being considered sunny. On my sunny deck the Bougainvillea 'Raspberry Ice' has decided to bloom this summer. This has been a consistent performer for several summers now. I just bring it in over the winter and put it in a sunny window, it sometimes looks near death by March but it always seems to come out of it.

A little sunny rain shower helped perk a few things up but not enough, we need more rain.

But it seemed to be enough to encourage one of my reblooming daylilies to put out another bloom or two. It's been hanging on in the increasing shade, although I have moved it around to be in the few remaining spots of sun. And, of course, the annual salvia in pots on my deck have become a great source of entertainment as the finches do a tight rope act to get to the seeds.

But it wouldn't be August without a few naked ladies dancing in your garden. That would be the Lycoris 'squamigera' type, not the two-legged type :)

But sadly I am left with color sourced from the foliage. This year I bought a large bag of random sized and color caladiums, from the Caladium Bulb Company. I used these in my front bed by the house, along with some coleus and sun impatiens to get some color in that usually drab spot. I've been delighted by the outcome. I want to play around with the combination some more next year but the random color of the bulbs has been fun to watch.

I even planted a few of the caladium blubs in my back shade bed to liven it up a bit, as well. I just wish they survived our winters, as I've not had good luck holding them over but I will try again. If not then I just order more!

Garden Bloggers Bloom day

Raccoon damage

Well gosh, I can only marginally refer to myself as a blogger, never felt I had that much to say I guess -- unless you ask me right now about a family of raccoons that have decided to redecorate my yard. But I'll play along with Garden Bloggers Bloom day because I love to take pictures of my flowers.

Blooming in my shady yard is usually limited to the few shade plants that are tolerant of the conditions. I have about 13 variety of hydrangeas and too many to count variety of hosta and all have different blooming cycles. It current showy-mode is Hydrangeas Peppermint, Double Pink, Blushing Bride, Endless Summer, Blaumeise (Teller Blue), Teller Red, and the hydrangea rescued from my mom's nursing home several years ago, so I call it Maxine.

Hydrangea 'Double Pink'

The hosta H. 'Jimmy Crack Corn', a hybrid of Piedmont Gold, is turning out to be a show stopper this year. I guess it's pretty happy with it relocation to the spring wetland area of my yard. It's just starting to bloom and has nicely-formed buds that open slowly for a continued show. Also in bloom is Sum and Substance, Stained Glass, Paul's Glory, Wylde Green Cream, Ventricosa, Fortunei Aureomarginata, Captain Kirk, Guacamole, and several others.

The bloom of H. 'Jimmy Crack Corn'

Hydrangea 'Blaumeise' and H. 'Fortunei Aureomarginata'

coneflowers and yarrow mixing it up

Perennial Smash

Asiatic lily, possible Stargazer

Hydrangea 'Peppermint'

Liatris emerges

With so much shade in my yard I have to depend more on texture and foliage color to keep it interesting. But I do have some areas that receive just enough sun to allow a few perennials that would be considered sun worshipers. So crammed into a little space in the back of my yard are a mingling of coneflowers, yarrow, liatris, Alstroemeria, agastache, helenium, phlox, menarda all currently in full bloom. On the other side of the yard but filling the air with fragrance day and night are my Asiatic lilies, they have been there for many years but I believe they were Stargazer, but that tag is long gone. Others are hanging out waiting for next months edition of Garden Bloggers Bloom day.

Educating New Gardeners

This years Flower and Patio show was a wonderful way to bring you out of the funk of winter, it's always great to see and smell all the amazing flora that is jam packed in to complement all the wonderful hardscape that seems to prevails at these shows. The number of gas firepits had to have taken the Exhibition Hall up one growing zone! I really liked the theme of neighborhoods; it was a great idea, as there are numerous great neighborhoods in this city. Overall I think the show was done nicely and was thankful to see the number of non-gardening related booths limited.

What's missing is the opportunity to really educate people about realistic gardening. As a Master Gardener, one of our responsibilities is to educate the public and I like to work at our booths to facilitate this goal but so often while working at shows like this I get some form of the same question, "How do I get my garden to have everything blooming all the time like these are." Now I work in advertising and I realized that having non-blooming plants in the display wouldn't bode well in a feature garden. It would be admirable if someone could figure out a way to show how to stage continuous instead of having a full season of blooming plants all blooming simultaneously! For those of us that know this is not a possible view it gets a little frustrating trying to explain to novices that is they want this sort of profusion of color for three months they might be spending a lot of money on annuals and pumping them full of bloom-builder fertilizer.

Maybe next year someone could be daring and not have every plant that is possible to force into bloom, in full bloom crammed in together. It's just not right to see tulips growing amongst full grown hostas, after all this is not Bree Van De Kamp's hydrangea garden on Wisteria Lane.