7-23 Garden Update: warm weather brings warm colours....
My, my, how a few splashes of orange and red brighten the palette of a garden. It's been ten days or so since the last garden post, flowers have gone, flowers have come.
In bloom in the tiny east bed are a red 'Champlain' rose, dusty-pink astilbe, orange day lilies, white shasta daisies, fiery asiatic lilies and candy-pink astilbe:
The heat wave arrived, stayed, and is being ushered out (for now) by a line of thunderstorms. It's been storming on and off today, the temperature down twenty five degrees from yesterday. The wind is fitful, lashing the trees and making the rain stream down the east windows when it's blowing, but it feels wonderful.
While the local human population moaned about the heat, the plants loved it. Best of all, the mid-summer orange and red-flowered plants have opened and have added much to the look of the beds. The tall yellow day lilies finished last week, but the orange ones are out, the tallest of all my flowers, their blossoms floating above the gardens like tropical birds. Bright red monarda (bee balm) are frequented by hummingbirds. Fire-red asiatic lilies (protected from the deer who love them with spritzes of stinking 'Liquid Fence') blaze like the beacons of Gondor. The white shasta daisies, fully out now, are providing the sparkle only white can give, and the yellow achillea (yarrow), along with evening primrose and coreopsis zagreb, add the gold. Astilbe in various pinks and reds are beginning to show their plumes, adding yet more of the red-pink family that, apart from the roses, was so sparse a week or two ago.
The pink-orchid heads of tall cone flowers won't open till next week, but they will add a great deal. The missing colours, now that the irises are gone and the salvia mostly spent, the purples and blues, won't arrive for a week or two: anise hyssop and Russian sage, then liatris. Shortly thereafter, summer will be over. It's swift here, but so beautiful. To help commemorate it, here are a few photos of the gardens showing the newly opened warm-palette blooms.
A side view of retaining wall bed: now blooming are red 'Chateau Merlot' rose, red monarda, fiery red asiatic lilies, orange day lilies, yellow achillea and evening primrose, white shastas and pink spiderwort.
The same garden from the other side showing the last of the purple salvia, freshly opened yellow achillea, red monarda, yellow evening primrose, white shastas and orange day lilies:
The bird bath peeks from the flowers. The birds like to stage themselves on the flower tops to use it. A popular bathing spot for robins, crows also dip their dried crusts in it and dogs drink out of it:
The bed under the front window with lilac-white flowers on the hostas, purple salvia, light blue balloon flower (tiny patch), pink astilbe, short yellow day lilies, red monarda, fiery red asiatic lilies, yellow achillea, white shastas, orange day lilies:
A small corner bed with fading Elizabethan bells, fading purple sage and newly blooming creamy-lemon achillea, very much brightened by tall orange day lilies.
The patio beds are definitely enhanced by the orange day lilies and red monarda:
The back bed, quite shady, is considerably brightened by the orange day lillies and white shastas. The feathers of a pink astilbe are just starting to open. The yellow is small evening primrose:
Again, what a difference that flight of orange makes to the composition.
Mechtild