Welcome

Nothing says welcome like color in the front garden.   There is a fine line when using perennials in the front of your home, so easy to lapse into messy and floppy.  Staking, deadheading, cutting down and general tidiness are important tasks during the growing season, whoever said perennials are carefree?

Amaranthus green and Love Lies Bleeding are in the raised bed on the south side.  They seem to like the heat and add a little interest as one walks the path.  I will begin cutting them soon for arrangements.

Heliopsis Sweet Lorraine is also along the south side.  It is about two feet tall and blooms all summer, love the variegated leaf!

Zahara Zinnias are doing very well in the hot south side border.

Two borders intersect with Limelight Hydrangea as the anchor.

Becky has center stage right now but soon Limelight will take over.

Miss Amelia Daylily

This is a rebloomer if you cut the stems to the ground.  I do not shear this one back until later because of the reblooming.  Orienpet lilies bloom in the background.

Starlight Let's Dance Hydrangeas along the walkway

Southern Comfort, Pistache, Mocha and Villosa Purpurea flourish under the Chanticleer Pear.

Ninebark Summer Wine with Silver Tidal Wave Petunia

It looks like I have an apparition in some of the photos.  Let's hope it is just a smudged lens!

Well, I have cleaned off my lens and am headed towards the back garden again just to catch up with a border I missed and some changes since the last border post.  On the way back on the north side I see another border that is often not appreciated for its beauty.

Astilbe Sprite was brought from my last home, very delicate color and doesn't seem to multiply for me in this location.

Astilbe Chinesis Visions

The veggie garden is a raised bed border along the back driveway with daylilies at one end, Vera Jameson Sedum and Nasturtiums.

Even the eggplant puts on a beautiful show with its secret lavender flowers.

I have a bountiful harvest of peppers this year.  I had better get busy picking and making hot peppers, onion, tomato and herbs in olive oil.

The nasturtium seeds were from last  year but they all germinated and add some color to a vegetable garden.

Believe it or not, this is my Bronze Sweet Potato Vine in my concrete planters by the garage,  I have never seen this vine bloom before!

The island border in the back garden has popped with lilies and phlox, Orienpet Lavon and Bubblegum Phlox.

Bubblegum Phlox

This was an expensive phlox last year and I even wondered this spring if it was going to come back.  Wow, it was certainly worth it, looks like a three year old specimen!



The Colossal Coleus

Do you remember what the word coleus used to conjure up in past years?  Well, I do, these rust, burgundy, green combinations of leaves that you planted in the shade.  I think I put them in one year and then decided that this was not my type of plant.

Indian Summer

Wow, have things changed!  Coleus is a temptress, a mood changer, and a vibrant plant in the garden.  How often do we get a plant that can grow in sun or shade?  I  am having trouble keeping up with the varieties and apologize ahead of time if I miss one or two.

Redhead

Pineapple Splash

This variety had sufferred frost damage and very slowly is coming back, but I don't think it is going to reach full potential - tag thrown out with the other one that died.

Electric Lime

I couldn't contain myself sampling some new varieties this year and even convinced my daughter-in-law to try one that I couldn't fit in.  It was called Trusty Rusty.

I have only had a problem with one that I have grown in the past Sedona.  It is usually a very prolific coleus for the sun but this year I think it got a bug, stunted eaten leaves.  I sprayed it, fed it a systemic and I think it is on its way back but late to be a beauty.

Dipt N' Wine in my back concrete planters

Inky Fingers that I have grown for years can spread six to eight feet!

Bordering On A Summer

Borders are tricky, they can put out lots of color and then take a rest.  That's where annuals come in keeping things interesting and colorful until the next big display.

Blue Paradise is one of my favorite phlox introduced by Piet Oudolf.  It is not as sturdy as say David Phlox, but it is well worth staking for the continual summer and fall display if deadheaded.  Note it is blue in the morning.

And Magenta in the afternoon

The Knockouts are taking a break and the phlox and shasta daisies are filling in the display.

 

The border is anchored by annuals impatiens, snapdragons, coleus and allysum.

Impatiens Wild Thing

I started this from seed and only had eight out of twenty-five seeds germinate.  It is a wonderful impatiens, compact, strong and very floriforus, probably not in the nurseries because of its germination habit.

I also grew La Bella Snapdragon that I saw at the Chicago Flower and Garden show.  It was difficult to find the seeds but finally did at a Chicago based seed company called Germania.

Red Rum Daylily will be cut down when done blooming to make way for the impatiens Wild Thing and the Lime Coleus to take over.

The secret to effective borders is to have many plants peeking out to keep the interest up in down flowering times.

Jack Frost Brunnera peeks out all summer with its lovely foliage, a gerber daisy, roses, snapdragons and a shasta ready to bloom.

Peeking out is really the secret for an effective border, but this is where it becomes tricky to just have something leaning forward rather than being smothered by other plantings.

Blue Sunshine Geranium is my new favorite, much more delicate than Rozanne and allows everything to peek out!

Rozanne is a great geranium but it tends to climb over other plantings rather than weaving around and through.

Intensia Blueberry Hill belongs in the garden.  I had it in my containers and it looked messy and flopped, so I took it out and let it peek out behind other garden plantings, just lovely.

Keep the borders tight with plantings, verticals help keep the eyes moving along looking for patterns.  Obelisks, trellises, fence planters and arbors keep the garden interesting.  The irises on the bottom right keep the eye going upward even though it is only foliage.

Another thing that keeps a border interesting is the use of tall and short plantings in succession.

Some plants in a sunny border are banished to the back where shade takes over.  Here is Maggie Daley astilbe with Ghost Fern very happy even though everything in front of them is part of a sun loving group.

Giving Up The Garden

Many years ago in my earlier gardening days I would be complaining about the heat and my garden that seemed to be giving up.  I have come to find out in subsequent years that it was not the garden it was me!  I very rarely took into account the various blooming times of each plant, if I liked it I planted it.

My extra early, early and some mid-season daylilies are all blooming at the same time like a musical concerto leading up to a crescendo.

Eileen Clymer is an extra early daylily that has been blooming for over a month.  I have never had a first year daylily like this with scape after scape arising from the soil with multiple blooms.

Happy Returns an extra early bloomer is in two areas of my garden, reblooms very little for me and is not as floriferous as my other daylilies.

Mary Todd is early, heavily scaped and very showy in the garden.  You might have to divide it every three or four years but the display is worth it.

Hyperion is an older variety that I brought from my last home.  I have moved it a few times but I think it has found a home on the south side of my home.  It is classified as early to mid-season.

Red Magic Daylily also came with me from my last home and blooms the same time as Hyperion.  They are together again and hope they will like that hot side of the house.

Miss Amelia is my see through daylily as you can actually plant shorter plants behind it and they peek through.  This is an early to mid-season daylily.


I love huge flowered daylilies but have to remember that the large flowers go with large scapes and leaves which can become unsightly in the garden bed.  I try to pull out the leaves that yellow before bloom and always cut them down to the ground after the entire plant has finished blooming.

Daylily Chicago Weathermaster is rainproof, blooms early to mid-season.

Arnie's Choice early to mid-season

Named after Arnie Morton Chicago Restauranteur

Red Rum is a shorter early to mid-season daylily, larger flower.  What's great about this daylily is that when you cut it down other plants in the border take over.

Dark Ruby early to mid-season has always been a problem for me as far as color and where to place it.

I am trying it with the white Becky Shasta this year.

Maybe I will try it with yellow or lime green!

I don't know what I was thinking that July was the end of my garden!  I now know that it is just the beginning for daylilies alone.  They have become the backbone of my garden from May through September!