Welcome to Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day for July 2020.
Here in my USDA hardiness zone 6a garden in central Indiana, I didn’t think I had a lot of blooms, but then I walked around and found a whole bunch of flowers, mixed in with lush growth.
I officially declare this to be a good year in the garden. Outside the garden gate, it may seem like the world is falling apart, but in the garden, all is good.
I hope your garden feels that way to you too!
Let’s start with a picture of a trio of coneflowers, Echinacea purpurea, which shows how lovely these flowers age. Aging well is a wonderful trait for a flower to have! I hope I have that trait.
Elsewhere in the garden… let’s take a quick walk and see!
Out in front, hiding the utility boxes and greeting neighbors as they walk by is the daylily, Hemerocallis ‘Hyperion’ (a lovely, old variety) along with Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’.
The agastache is a bee magnet.
Another old-fashioned flower blooming this month is the double tiger lily, Lilium lancifolium ‘Flore Pleno’.
Speaking of old-fashioned, for clean old-fashioned good fun, I recommend you listen each week to the podcast, The Gardenangelists, that I record with Dee Nash of Red-Dirt Ramblings. This week, we give some bulb-buying advice and reveal a few other secrets.
Let’s go little and wild and spreading but not in a bad with wild petunias, Ruellia humulis.
I am definitely letting these self-sow wherever they want!
I also let the false sunflower, Heliopsis helianthoides, seed itself a bit but I watch it like a hawk because it is a big plant.
I only need a few big plants in my small garden.
Another big self-sower is common dill. Oh my. These are over six feet tall.
They were all volunteer seedlings. I tell people you should only need to buy dill seed once. After that, they will just self-sow and you can pull out what you don’t want and leave the rest. I leave mine growing wherever I plant the cucumbers. (Speaking of which, I just recorded a new garden reaction video about cucumbers which you might enjoy.)
Out in front, Geranium ‘Rozanne’ has been blooming with abandon for several weeks and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
I think it will keep going right until fall.
Back out in the vegetable garden, I sowed seeds for sweet peas at the ends of every bed in early April and they’ve continued to bloom in spite of the heat.
I love them and have no idea why I waited so many years to bring them back to my garden. I put them back on the “must plant” list and will be looking for varieties with lots of good scent.
Another flower I started from seed earlier in the spring is Nicotiana alata, an heirloom flower from Renee’s Garden Seeds.
Such a sweet scented flower, I’m going to try to grow it every year now too.
It goes well with these snapdragons which I planted out in late March.
I keep deadheading them and they keep blooming.
How about some black-eyed susan’s?
This little puddle of Rudbeckia also self-sowed it in this spot and I just left it.
Near where I actually planted black-eyed susans is the daylily, Hemoreocallis ‘Notify Ground Crew’.
It’s flower scapes are at least five feet tall.
More annuals? You bet. I love these flowering vincas I bought at the local greenhouse.
This one is actually a hybrid Catharanthus and the series is called Soiree Ka-wa-i-i®. I do nothing but water it.
Want to see another self-sower? This is a tickseed, Coreopsis rosea.
I keep it going by leaving it alone and letting it flower and go to seed. Then it rewards me for my hard work by showing up in July with more flowers.
There are more flowers in my garden but I decided this post is getting a bit long and so I’ll wrap this up with some zinnias, freshly cut from the garden. They’ll be blooming now until fall!
And that’s a peek at my little garden in the middle of July.
What’s blooming in your garden today? We would love to have you join in for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day and show us. It’s easy to participate. Just post on your blog about the flowers you have blooming on or around the 15th of the month, and then leave a comment below to tell us what you have and a link in the Mr. Linky widget to show us how to get to your post.
And always remember…
We can have flowers nearly every month of the year. ~ Elizabeth Lawrence
Gardens are more important than ever -Happy Bloomday !
Happy Bloom Day! The garden certainly brings peace during these difficult times and serves as a sanctuary. It has been a hot July and Hydrangeas, Coneflowers and Black Eyed Susan are blooming, among others.
It is the audacity of hope that will give strength to each of us to pass through this difficult period of life.I certainly feel everything will be normal in a near future .We are experiencing monsoon rains which is a form of relief in this time.
My garden is sustaining me, too. I enjoy those older daylilies. I tried to grow wild petunias last year – no luck. Sweet peas I haven't had luck with, either, but I haven't tried in many years and I might make a note for next year. Yes, next year – we have to get through what is to come, but our gardens will be waiting for us, I know. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com
I always find it interesting to see how far ahead 6a Indiana is than 6a Nova Scotia. And every other place and zone, for that matter. Of course, every year is a bit different anyway! Thanks. 🙂
Looking good in your garden. I love agastache. I wish it overwintered better here. Too wet in winter I suppose. ~~Dee
You have lots of nice summer things happening in your garden. I like that agastache. I think some varieties grow here in Austin, but I've never tried any. You're correct that the garden is a balm against the craziness of the outside world. Those of us who garden are fortunate. Thanks for hosting!
Happy Bloom Day! I have hydrangeas, Black Eyed Susans, Coneflowers, daylilies, Stargazer Lilies, balloon flower, bee balm, and my dwarf Joe Pye Weed is just beginning. I am loving it!
I really do need to start growing Sweet Peas. I just love their fragrance! In Sweden, I always got a bouquet for my birthday, growing up. That shows you how far ahead things are over here – my birthday is in the later half of August. I guess I'll have to choose a different birthday flower here in the PNW. I'm contributing a horticultural mystery this month.
Like Dee I wish Agastache stuck around a bit longer. As you say it's such a bee magnet (often the preferred flower) but I've only had it bloom over 3 seasons for me. Like Echinacea it's a short-lived perennial. For Blooms Day I'm looking at some surprise flowers i.e. those that are blooming out of their usual season. I didn't spot anything like that in your garden today Carol!
Such nice annuals. A lot of mine didn't do well at all this year. I'm hoping there's time to grow some more. If not, I'm only out the cost of seeds, nothing major! I have several kinds of coreopsis, but none of the rose. I must remedy that!
So many flowers! And that combo of dill and the mention of cucumbers, well, now I'm craving a really good pickle.
You do have a LOT going on this month! I used to complain that I didn't get any self-seeding plants and now there are more than I can keep track of. Perhaps my garden just needed some time to settle in – or perhaps I just tidied it up too quickly in the early days. Thanks as always for hosting GBBD, Carol.
Happy July Bloom Day! Your flowers are lovely 🙂
Your garden is certainly full of summer colour, a wonderful place to be in these dreadful times. Lovely to see all your day lilies, I love them and have quite a few, they seem to do well in my soil.
I'm hoping I get some zinnias this year (things have been weird in this new garden) since it just wouldn't be summer without them.
Happy Bloom Day! I had more blooming than I realized, but I see you have several blooming ahead of my NW garden.
Lovely as usual to see everyone's flowers! I'm happy to have more blooming this July than in past years, as my garden used to flower heavily in June and be sparse the rest of the season. Thank you lilies, astilbe, perennial allium, paniculata phlox, veronica, sea holly and dahlias for showing up in the heat!
Like you, I have Agastache blooming this month. I especially love the warm colors of the Acapulco series. But for some reason, Google has decided it doesn't remember that I'm Jane / MulchMaid so it's calling me Unknown, with no option to change it. Thank you for hosting so faithfully, Carol!
That Rozanne geranium WILL bloom into fall, if it's anything like mine. I also declare this a good garden year, despite the drought we're having here. The vegetable garden in particular is doing well, with my persistent hand-watering, but the established perennials really shine in dry years like this.
Better late than never! Praying for rain in our record heat wave here in DC – if you get any, send some our way.
Hi Carol, Wonderful set of summer flowers! But no lilies. How is that even possible? Maybe next month…
Carol, This is the month when we have many of the same flowers blooming: echinacea, daylilies, hardy geranium, heliopsis, rudbeckia. Like you, I let the self-sown rudbeckia bloom where they will. This year, I've also had a lot of self-sown echinacea pop up; I may transplant some of those after they finish blooming. Thanks again for hosting.