Since the ballast shorted out for the light in our basement greenhouse late last winter and it took awhile to replace it, most of the overwintered plants looked pretty crummy this spring. Turning misfortune to opportunity, it's been pretty nice having a fresh crop of plants for many of our containers. The spindly, even leafless basement victims recovered in a sunny spot in the meantime, and now fill in pots and other spots in the garden. Purple fountain grass and the chartreuse-leaved pelargonium 'Crystal Palace Gem' are among the fresh faces this year.
Geranium 'Rozanne' sprawls over early-spring bloomers like bergenia and hellebores, churning out blooms from late May through frost, even in part sun. That's double impatiens in the hanging basket.
Watering has been a chore during this hot, dry summer. Most of the pots not directly in the garden have saucers to save water - especially the thirsty impatiens in little pots along this short path between patio and lawn.
The mini-rose has been blooming all season.
Hosta 'Fujibotan' has lavender-pink double blossoms on tall scapes. It's just starting to bloom, and will keep going for almost a month. This year it has twenty-one flower scapes!
Hosta 'Fujibotan' has lavender-pink double blossoms on tall scapes. It's just starting to bloom, and will keep going for almost a month. This year it has twenty-one flower scapes!
I love this combo of Dragon Wing begonias and Diamond Frost Euphorbia.
The peachy pelargonium and petunia in the pot on the left are basement survivors. The geranium is five years old, and amazingly, Supertunia Vista Silverberry, fondly nicknamed Spring Fling Petunia, (gift from Proven Winners for participants at Garden Bloggers' Spring Fling Chicago 2009,) has survived three winters in the basement.
Cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis, a native hummingbird magnet, just started blooming.
Culver's Root, moved last fall, seems to be thriving in its new, slightly sunnier spot along with a coneflower. In the background, 'Blue Paradise' phlox, new last year and still small, just started blooming. Geranium 'Biokovo' is reblooming for the first time, and barely peeking out from behind the tree, 'Jacob Cline' monarda is very popular with hummingbirds.
Cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis, a native hummingbird magnet, just started blooming.
Rudbeckia 'Herbstsonne' hasn't much liked our hot, dry summer. They're two feet shorter, and not nearly as full as they normally are by the time they start blooming. The first flowers are smaller too. Behind the rudbeckias and coneflowers, Joe Pye weed is shorter than usual too.
'Sunday Gloves' daylily seems oblivious to the heat.
This brunnera was a volunteer seedling that popped up over here from a neighbor's plants. It's the first time I've seen a brunnera rebloom.
We have heirloom potatoes from Landreth Seed growing in two of the samples the nice folks at Smart Pots gave me last August at the Independent Garden Center Show at Navy Pier. Potatoes have nice foliage, pretty blooms, and they're fun to grow. We're looking forward to harvesting our first home-grown potatoes in a few weeks.
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Here's a different perspective where you can see the phlox and monarda a little better. Heuchera villosa 'Mocha' shows up in this shot too. Besides the nice foliage, this heuchera blooms all season long.
Bloom Day posts here tend to include a lot of closeups, so it seemed fun to change it up with some long shots this time. Hope you enjoyed them. To see more Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day posts that will surely include closeups and long shots of what's blooming in gardens around the world today, please visit our host, Carol at May Dreams Gardens.
That last photo is so lovely. Your garden doesn't look like they have been deprived of anything!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Kalantikan.
DeleteThe garden has been getting a deep watering about once a week, any week we go without rain. Being a young garden under very mature silver maples and even with a lot of drought-tolerant plants, little to nothing would survive otherwise. The maples suck every drop of moisture from the soil, and their extensive root systems dramatically slow down garden plants being able to establish themselves here, while preventing a lot of stuff from rooting as deeply as is normal, and even as necessary for drought survival.
Girl, I love you geranium, and begonia Dragon wings. Your patients look very healthy and bright!
ReplyDeleteMe too, Nadezda! The new geranium is a new favorite, and the Dragon Wings are old favorites!
DeleteThe impatiens are great for those shady spots that wouldn't otherwise have much color. They seem to do best in pots with saucers here since they are such thirsty plants.
Yes, I plant them in shadow place and in boxes, too.
DeleteThank you for the honor, Nadezda!
DeleteYour garden looks so lush and beautiful, Linda! Your impatiens look so full; mine have really suffered in this heat. I love all your combos, and I agree the euphorbia and dragonwing begonia really look good together. I enjoyed all the long shots--they really gave me a better idea of just how many containers you have, not to mention your talent in plant combinations in the garden. I stuck to close-ups this time--there's too much yellow foliage and wilting plants in my garden:)
ReplyDeleteMy husband has been watching a lot of Cubs' games lately, and it seems like every other game has had a rain delay--I hope some of that rain has been reaching you, too, Linda. We finally had a nice shower yesterday, but sure could use a few more days like that.
Thank you, Rose!
DeleteThose saucers definitely help the impatiens. I've never had them rot even though the saucers get filled every time they're watered. They don't go in the ground here anymore - tried that and am not able (or willing) to give them enough water to thrive directly in the garden.
Glad you got a good shower yesterday, Rose! The rain was very scattered here. A mile away where I watered for a client, and at the nearby golf course where the Lawn Man played with a friend, there were 30-minute downpours. Here we got sprinkles. :~( But we did get a couple of good soaking rains within the last two weeks.
Beautiful as usual, Linda. You are such an artist with plants. I can't wait to see everything in person at the Middle One's shower this month. I'll bring some fresh garlic, in case you need a little fragrance diversity. LOL Would our Lawn Man like some more garlic powder? ♥ ♥
ReplyDeleteAw, thanks, Mom! So glad you'll get to see everything (and everyone!) in person in a couple of weeks!
DeleteI'm sure he'd love more garlic powder, and so would I! There's still a bit left, and we're rationing it!
un beau jardin, je prendre des idées avec tes pots j'aime bien combo de Dragon Wing bégonias et Diamond Frost euphorbe, une bonne idée pour l'année prochaine.
ReplyDeleteune belle hémérocalle
a+@
mp
le jardin boultois
Merci, MP!
DeleteYour containers look wonderful so healthy. This is the time of year when some of the container plants can't take it anymore. I am really beginning to be more selective of heat resistant plants when I do the containers.
ReplyDeleteSunday Gloves Daylily looks great, almost pure white.
Eileen
One of the blessings of so little sun, Eileen - the containers don't roast. Five hours is the max any of them get, and most get much less. That limits what I can put in them if we want bloom, but they suffer much less from the heat.
DeleteWe don't have many varieties of daylilies here because of all the shade, but Sunday Gloves is definitely my favorite of the ones we do have.
Your garden looks beautiful! How have you managed to keep it so lush in the heat and drought? Also, kudos for keeping the Spring Fling Petunia alive!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rose! We have gotten a couple of good, soaking rains here fairly recently, and we do water weekly if there's no rain. We have a lot of natives and other drought-tolerant stuff too. Still, we have a lot of stunted plants, some powdery mildew, and to top it off today I found a family of bunnies with very small babies snacking in the garden. I chased them out with the hose, and told the mama to take her kids and leave while she was waiting for them all to be accounted for. (Then I sprayed Liquid Fence all over the place. :~O )
DeleteWhat a lovely garden you have! I found you through GBBD, my first visit here, will definitely be back :-) Loved your Lobelia cardinalis, I have grown it in the past but it didn't like the acid soil in my London garden so it was swapped for something else eventually.
ReplyDeleteThank you Helene, and welcome! Those lobelias are favorites both for their brilliant red blooms and for the hummingbirds they attract.
DeleteDidn't realize that 'Rozanne' would bloom in part shade. I love that 'Sunday Gloves' daylily! You have a great yard.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't get as tall and full as it does in full sun, but 'Rozanne' blooms beautifully with the dappled morning sunlight it gets in our garden.
DeleteThanks Jason!
This is Jason again. Didn't realize my last comment didn't connect to my blog. Take a look when you have the chance.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link Jason. Love your garden, especially the great selection of natives you're growing. (and I'm jealous of all the sun you have!)
DeleteThank you. I'm not a natives only person, but it seems the further you get into summer the more the sunny garden is dominated by the natives. The back is shadier, the only perennial blooming back there is the cardinal flower. I have annuals blooming, though.
Deletealoha,
ReplyDeleteloved the garden tour...those glass accents are really cool!
Glad you enjoyed it, Noel.
DeleteI love the blown glass! I won them on #gardenchat last winter. They're from http://www.glassgardensnw.com/ , and they're called fiddlesticks.
Wow--your containers are spectacular! What an amazing amount of blooms and color you have--July has not been kind to my gardens, especially since we were visiting relatives in Europe for two weeks. I'm also about to harvest our potatoes--they really produce the cutest little blooms, don't they? Lovely photos, and looking forward to visiting again soon. Happy GBBD!
ReplyDeleteWow--thank you, Julie!
DeleteOuch - two weeks in July would have fried a lot of stuff here. Two weeks in Europe though, sounds wonderful. Bet it was a lot cooler there.
I love the potato blossoms - very sweet. Enjoy your potatoes! We're looking forward to seeing how many we get, and trying our first home-grown potatoes. Thanks for visiting - Happy Bloom Day!
Linda, I enjoyed them all very much. Happy Bloom Day! Your containers are splendid, and I'm digging that blown glass in your garden. It's nice to see that containers in the greenhouse overwintered and even those which nearly died or went dormant, are now thriving. Plants are amazing things.~~Dee
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the blooms, Dee!
DeleteThanks for another vote for the glass - my husband's not fond of it, but I love it. My scientific facebook poll was about 10-to-one in favor of it! ;~)
They are amazing. There were more than a few things I was tempted to pitch into the compost, but they all got a chance with lots of sun and some TLC, and everything eventually recovered.
Hi there!
ReplyDeleteYour garden just looks fantastic! Wow, and I really do envy you for the hosta. Mine have got a lot of holes in their foliage because of hail and snails :o(. I love your potatoes, their blooms look really special.
Have a lovely day in your garden!
Alex
Thank you Alex!
DeleteWe don't have many slugs this year because there has been so little rain. I curse the slugs during rainy summers, but after this very hot, dry summer, I won't do that anymore. I'd rather have holey hostas than no rain and so much heat!
Hope you have a wonderful day too!
Gorgeous blooms...the white Veronicastrum is so elegant...and isn't 'Rozanne' a champ! Love your glass fiddleheads :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm loving the Culver's Root, Scott.
Delete'Rozanne' is definitely a champ. She's doing great even in the heat and drought, and she's doing great in my clients' gardens who have her too. Just to sing her praises and show what a champ she really is: I planted a new 'Rozanne' in my oldest daughter's garden in June. We are in 'extreme drought,' and have had extreme heat this summer. The new 'Rozanne' gets lots of sun, and with twins and a toddler, not much extra water, and it's doing great anyway. I keep my eye on it since her hands are pretty full and a new plant is the last thing she needs to worry about. I was there today, thought about watering it even though it looked fine, but a 15-minute downpour took care of it for the next week or two since it's in a nice, thick bed of mulch. I don't think my daughter has watered it at all, and I've only watered it once. Today I deadheaded it and pulled off two brown leaves. 'Rozanne' is tough!
Thanks for your 'vote' in favor of the glass! :~)