Don't be fooled. Inside this thin coating of sweetness is a fiery core of total insanity.

Monday, July 15, 2013

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day -- July 2013

It's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day!

Although there are plenty of flowers in this post, I honestly don't feel like I have anywhere near enough flowers in my garden. I've planted the back with foliage in mind for the most part, and it is pretty much a sea of green, and is very calming to sit in, look at, or walk through. It's good to look at up close, where you can really see all the contrasts in form and texture and subtle differences. But you know, sometimes I just want to look at a riot of flowers, especially at high summer. So I'm working -- in my head for the most part, via lots of critical staring -- on redoing the front next year, getting rid of a portion of grass, and planting it in big tropical foliage and lots of bright flowers. I'm thinking orange and pink and a few spots of restful blue. I hope it ends up looking like it looks in my head.

My daylilies are going strong. They're one of my favorite perennials, with their big, colorful flowers.


'Indy Charmer'


'Bold Tiger' -- I love this one, and plan to buy more


'Pardon Me'


'Royal Braid'



I started a lot of Nasturtium 'Alaska' from seed direct-sown into my front bed, and they are really lighting up the garden, in shades of orange and red and yellow and peach.





Salvia patens, still growing in the pot it was sown into two years ago, is such a deep blue. I saved seeds from it last year and sowed more.

Hydrangea 'Annabelle' has plenty of little mopheads.


Asclepias tuberosa, growing in the gravel garden with Mexican feather grass. I planted it last year, and sowed seeds saved from it last winter. The little babies are growing quite well, and will make a beautiful river of orange in next year's front bed.

Geranium 'Rozanne' scrambling around in a semi-shady spot near the new gate.

Filipendula flowers with the foliage of Impatiens omeiana

Sempervivum flowers

The first Echinacea purpurea to open

Lilium 'Eyeliner'


Another lily, but I can't remember the name


Matilja poppy

Canna

Erigeron and yellow-eyed grass

Veronicastrum 'Fascination'

Hydrangea 'Invincibelle Spirit'

'Laura Bush' Petunia





Invincibelle Spirit and Agastache 'Golden Jubilee'

Fuchsia magellanica


Mertensia maritima (simplicissima)

Eryngium 'Big Blue'

Agastache color-matched with the seedheads of Mexican feather grass -- a happy accident

Teucrium

Dierama

Origanum 'Kent Beauty'


Poppy seedpods with Allium sphaerocephalon

California poppy with dark-leafed Ninebark

Front bed with Nasturtiums, California poppy, and lilies

The same bed from the other side

Oakleaf Hydrangea flower -- the first ever

Centaurea montana 'Amethyst Dream' reblooming

Lobelia tupa starting to open

Fuchsia magellanica

Filipendula flowers against the dark foliage of Bugbane

Geum triflorum, also known as prairie smoke. I have a good size patch of this, but it has never bloomed in abundance. I keep hoping some day it will live up to its name, and have a profusion of seedheads that give it its common name.

Kniphofia

Coreopsis 'Red Shift'

Technically not flowers, but they look like it -- and I can use the same shot tomorrow for Foliage Followup!



Garden Bloggers Bloom Day takes place every month on the 15th, and is hosted by Carol Michel of the blog May Dreams Gardens. Check out her blog for many more links to others who have flowers blooming all around the world.