July-August 2014: High Summer in Garden and Meadow: 1.Hot and Cool

Hemerocallis 'Dark Star' starts July, and our our daylily season, in earnest in the fenced garden (beyond David are the small yellow flowers of Hemerocallis 'Corky', which begins flowering around the same time.)  In the foreground, black-eyed, flagrantly magenta Geranium 'Anne Thomson' picks up and modulates the daylily's red tone-- on a much louder note.

Geranium 'Anne Thomson' is similar in ancestry and appearance to the better known G. 'Ann Folkard'-- magenta flowers flaunted against chartreuse young foliage for most of the summer, on weaving stems. G.'Ann Folkard' dies here in summer heat or winter cold, but we have grown G. 'Anne  Thomson' for many years.

More hot summer colors: the extraordinary deep claret of Knautia macedonica, paired in the entry courtyard with brilliant orange Asclepias tuberosa, butterflyweed.

Ascelpias tuberosa, planted originally in the meadow, has seeded itself around and is almost always welcome; here it is in the big island bed, cooled by nearby blues from nepetas and tradescantias.

Ascepias tuberosa with Verbascum chaixii 'Album'

Home grown chance hybrid coneflowers (hybrids between Echinacea purpurea and E. tennesseensis) began to bloom in June, but continue through July-- here with the orange of Asclepias tuberosa as a backdrop.

The warm apricot colors of Gladiolus 'Boone' are like nothing else in the garden. This glad is more or less hardy here, left in the ground over numerous winters. In our fenced garden voles pose a greater hazard than cold. Here it is flanked by Geranium 'Orkney Cherry' and Papaver rhoeas.

   

Delosperma 'Topaz' achieves its shimmering color by shading peachy yellow with a touch of magenta. We hope this new plant will winter in the gravel of the east garden steps.

 

Allium flavum 'Blue Leaf' (aka 'Glaucum') lights its yellow firecrackers under the pool terrace bench, which faces south and catches the sun.

   

The clear, soft lavendar blue flowers of Tradescantia subaspera 'LSS Lazy Blue' cool us through most of the summer. It is less of a thug than other tradescantias here. Those include self-sown apparent crosses between it and T. 'Concord Grape', which was pretty much sterile when it was our lone spiderwort.

Volunteer seedling crosses between Tradescantia subaspera and T. 'Concord Grape' have crowded out what we planted as a second group of T. subaspera 'LSS Lazy Blue'. The purples of the seedlings are more or less welcome in this part of the big island bed, backed by Clematis x durandii and the oddly chartreuse-toned early summer foliage of Cornus 'Midwinter Fire'. Late bracts of Euphorbia griffithii 'Fireglow' add sparks of orange, Malva alcea fastigiata a little of pink, and Verbascum chaixii 'Album' short spires of white.

A slightly later companion to those tradescantias is Euphorbia schillingii, typically spurge-chartreuse but atypically tall and late blooming. The tall. pale lavender spikes are Veronicastrum 'Lavendelturm'.

Euphorbia seguieriana var. niciciana is another summer-blooming spurge (this one for many weeks). Its chartreuse floral bracts cool neighboring colors (even, here, the red garage roof). It self sows freely, especially in gravel. Here it has crossed a path to establish outposts among short grasses and sedges in the meadow.

 

Euphorbia myrsinites bears chartreuse bracts in early spring, with blue-green foliage impersonating a big-leafed sedum for the rest of the season, even persisting through winter.  Here it softens the stone and gravel of our renovated west steps.

Stone replaced locust log steps through the meadow on the west side of the house this spring, and still look a little raw.

More cool glaucous foliage, from Hosta 'Blue Mouse Ears' in the partial shade of the fenced garden bench (with the yellow flowers of Sedum rupestre-- which also has glaucous, blue-green foliage.

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The blue-gray-green foliage of leadplant, Amorpha canescens is also coated, at least early in the season, with a whitish bloom. A drought tolerant legume, leadplant is one of the few plants to do well on the upper slopes of our meadow, increasingly impoverished by expanding tree roots from the woodland edge.

 

A close view of leadplant's purple flowers reveals their orange anthers; from farther off those add complexity or sparkle.

Iris season can never last long enough! This is Iris 'Currier McEwen', a hybrid between an Iris ensata cultivar (a Japanese iris) and the American blue flag, Iris versicolor; it helps to extend the season.

June into July 2014: Mulleins, meadowrues, and a few more

Our wren house was vacant this spring, but a pair have moved in to raise a late brood-- over Digitalis grandiflora, Verbascum chaixii album, and butterflyweed, Asclepias tuberosum.

The driveway bed got stone stone edging this spring, but still straggles out into the gravel with a fringe of oxeye daisies. Two kinds of mulleins show here, Verbascum chaixii album on the right, and an apparent hybrid that turns up here between Verbascum chaixii and Verbascum thapsus (the tall common mullein), intermediate in habit between the two and very long blooming-- those are on the left, with purple Tradescantia 'Concord Grape' between.

Another of our homegrown hybrid mulleins, leaning over the garden steps

Homegrown hybrid mullein, close

Verbascum chaixii album and butterflyweed, Asclepias tuberosum

The driveway bed, largely renovated last year, with its new stone edging added this spring. More mulleins, including a couple well-fed common mulleins (Verbascum thapsus).

The pale yellow of the small yellow foxglove, Digitalis lutea, at the lower right

Bright orange butterflyweed, Asclepias tuberosa, in the gravel of the entry courtyard, backed by Verbascum chaixii album, the long lasting chartreuse bracts of Euphorbia seguieriana var. niciciana-- and brighter chartreuse from the foliage of Spiraea thubergii 'Ogon' in the driveway bed behind.

Tradescantia 'Concord Grape' (in the driveway bed) was supposed to be sterile, and perhaps on its own it was nearly so. Ever since I planted Tradescantia subaspera (another tradescantia that doesn't self-sow too generously on its own) in the nearby big island bed, we get a lot more seedlings. They are mostly a nuisance, but I've been watching this volunteer in the gravel of the entry courtyard for a couple years for its astonishingly brilliant magenta color, backed here by a dwarf golden barberry.

Digitalis grandiflora, the yellow foxglove, the most reliably perennial of our foxgloves

We grew a big batch of the small yellow foxglove, Digitalis lutea, from seed last year, after long enjoying it in a friend's garden. The chartreuse shrub is Spirea thunbergii 'Ogon'.

Biennial Digitalis lanata, the aptly named woolly foxglove

The circular terrace stonework left small planting pockets around a paving stone, where the usually quiet Sedum spurium 'John Creech' is having its moment.

Thalictrum lucidum, shining meadow rue, in the fenced garden

Another meadow rue in the fenced garden. This closeup of Thalictrum 'Elin' was taken on a short, young, recently acquired plant. We would need a stepladder to photograph the flowers  near the top or our other plant. Hybrid vigor carries them to seven or eight foot heights here, even higher in some gardens.

'Elin' is our largest meadowrue, Thalictrum kiusianum by far the smallest, here between paving stones in the shade of a chair in the fenced garden. Chartreuse leaves of Filipendula ulmaria 'Aurea' loom over the tiny but long blooming meadowrue. 

The fenced garden bench offers shade to a dwarf blue hosta, Hosta 'Blue Mouse Ears'. David really likes the big blue hostas, but we have found moist shade enough for just a few little ones. Sedum rupestre is to the right, sweet violets and another small meadowrue, Thalictrum ichangense, barely visible to the left.

My favorite tuffet in the fenced garden, the very blue Hosta 'Gemstone'

Tanacetum macrophyllum in the fenced garden

Spigelia marylandica in the fenced garden. The interiors of the scarlet flowers can be either yellow or chartreuse. Here, their chartreuse picks up the foliage color of Tanacetum 'Isla Gold'.

Spigelia marylandica, this one yellow and scarlet, leaning over the dark and dependable foliage of Hosta villosa atropurpurea.

Heliopsis helianthoides starting to bloom in the meadow to either side of a path to the fenced garden

Bluebirds are raising a second brood in the tallest of the folly birdhouses, and sometimes pause as finials. Pale purple coneflowers, Echinacea pallida, bloom in the meadow beneath the houses.

Pale purple coneflowers, Echinacea pallida

Pale purple coneflowers, Echinacea pallida seem to change color with the evening light.

We didn't do well with the fancy hybrid echinaceas when they first arrived, but a hybrid that turned up here, apparently between Echinacea tenneseensis and Echinacea purpurea, grows well, with graceful, long stems and vivid, lasting flowers-- if our goldfinches are not too eager.

A late blooming iris pleasure in the big island bed, Iris 'Akira Horinaka'. It is a hybrid between one of the Japanese irises, Iris ensata, and the American blue flag, Iris versicolor.

Veroncastrum 'Lavendelturm' with Euphorbia schillingii in the big island bed

Coming soon...

The Calycanthus Collection

Vining Clematis

Non-vining Clematis