As I review last year’s Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, I notice the Lot’s blooms are a bit behind the point they were in September of 2015 or 2013. I snuck out earlier this morning before logging on for work to catch some pictures in the morning light. The weather has been absolutely beautiful since this past weekend; it is sunny and tops out in the mid seventies degree Fahrenheit with no humidity. Woo-hoo! Here are some of the blooms currently rocking the Lot.
In the South bed, the plumbago and rudbeckia have been showing their colors for a few weeks now. The sedum is beginning to get its cotton candy-colored blooms.
The shrubby cinquefoil is still going strong since Spring. I really love this little shrub for the small, sunny space next to a rose in the South bed. Collapsing onto it are some echinacea. Unfortunately there was some overcrowding in the coneflowers this year, so they battled a bit of disease. If the weather stays cooler, I think I’ll be thinning them out.
The Route 66 coreopsis has been blooming all summer in front of the echinacea.
Here is the crazy mess of color blooming in front of the smoke bush. I think some of the coreopsis cultivars are reverting back into the solid yellow, so I may pull them. It is also possible the plant reseeded from the right side of the South bed.
Here is a more macro view of the left side of the South bed.
There are splashes of rudbeckia all around the backyard. I’d recently thinned these so they’re a bit floppy still from shock. This patch is between the “Grandma Rose” I received from Mrs. J. and the winter savory. Nestled at its base is Josefine, a little garden charm I brought home from our trip to Germany.
Here is the anemone I saw last season on a garden tour, and had to have for this season! It adds some flower power to a month the Lot had seemed limited in bloom variety. I found it during our annual Spring Nursery crawl. It is doing quite well in the backyard bed.
Here is a macro view of the right side of the backyard bed. This is one of the beds the Other Half and I extended this season.
These are some asters I had forgotten about! I was trying to wrangle a false indigo into a rope girdle and found the aster blooms beneath the larger, floppy plant.
These are some double-style snapdragons which recently sprung back with the cooling of the weather. While I was working in the garden on Memorial Day weekend, it was humorous to watch a large bumblebee try to get into this flower.
This is the full planter. My gardening gal friend Miss A. created the arrangement of snapdragons, lantana, and cosmos.
On the left side of the backyard bed, more rudbeckia and a new yarrow have been blooming. The mum is working on opening up.
This is the portion of Loki’s bed I expanded last year. The little plug of lavender really took off! The heuchera are all blooming.
Currently nestled in a hanging planter above Loki’s bed is a new clematis, the prize of this Spring’s Nursery Crawl. I learned of Clematis ‘Rooguchi’ during March’s Smart Gardening conference. This small-bloomed, rambling clematis plays well with other garden plants and blooms all season long. It is a “Type 3” clematis and can be pruned back to the ground in the Spring since all flowers are on new wood.
And then there’s the rowdy cousin. Clematis terniflora (known as sweet autumn clematis) is now well established on the Lot and grew like a plant possessed this season. Last year I learned my lesson concerning its rampant growth behavior, so this season I took time to train it and am much more happy with the results. Overall, I feel this worked well as a choice for a climber on the pergola.
Here is a snapshot of the fragrant, little flowers.
And here is an overall shot of how it appears on the pergola.
Other blooms present but beginning to wane on the Lot this month are the jupiter’s beard (Centranthus ruber), butterfly bush (Buddleia), cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum), great blue lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), rose campion (Silene coronaria), hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis) and tall garden phlox (Phlox paniculata).
To see what else is blooming in gardens around the world, visit May Dreams Gardens, the hostess of this meme.
That clematis on the pergola is rockin’. BTW, how did you bring a plant back from Germany?
Not the plant, but the little Igel (hedgehog) by the plant. Even a crazy gardener like me knows not to try to pull that caper on Customs. ^_~
That anemone is so pretty! I may need to add some rudbeckia to my flowerbeds, so I have a few splashes of color this time of year. Also, I keep thinking I need to find space for a clematis, but have yet to actually do it. Perhaps against a wall….
Happy Bloom Day!
Thank you for the compliments, Linnae! You should definitely give rudbeckia a try. It should do well in zones 4-10 and is a super, low maintenance plant. If you’re up for training a plant, give the clematis a shot as well. Great way to get some vertical color and foliage.