June GBBD: Almost Summer

If I had written this blog post last night, it would have been another one of my whiny, grumpy posts.  It's been in the 90's here this past week, and I don't do well in heat--I turn into a complete grouch when sweat starts running down my face.  As if that weren't bad enough, it's been bone dry without a drop of rain for two weeks or more.  About all I've gotten done outside lately is drag hoses around to water and then water some more.

That is, until last night--it rained!!  I don't know how much rainfall we received since I discovered my rain gauge is cracked.  But whether it was 1/2 inch or an inch, my garden--and this gardener--is so much happier.  It's still unbearably hot, but I'm so thankful for rain I'm not going to complain today.

So, let's take a look around the garden and see what is blooming on this Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day in June.

People may turn up their noses at the ubiquitous 'Stella d'Oro' that seems to be the staple of every commercial planting.  But when they bloom this prolifically every June, I just don't have the heart to tear them out.

And who knew the bees like them??  Actually, the bees much prefer the 'Walker's Low' Nepeta next to the Stellas, but this bee seemed to find something to his liking in the lilies.

Another plant one of my gardening friends considers a weed rather than a flower is Yarrow.  This is 'Appleblossom,' and the blooms are actually much pinker than this photo shows.  Yarrow is one of those plants that will spread, but it's easy to pull out wherever you don't want it, and I happen to like it, especially since it's such a tough plant that doesn't mind the dry spell we've had.

While we're talking about plants that not everyone likes, the Chicory is blooming.  It's another one of those weedy wildflowers that I happen to like, especially when it is blooming along the roadsides.  For me, it's hard not to like these pretty blue blooms.

In the butterfly garden I have a new addition that I'm sure I didn't plant--Evening Primrose, perhaps??

Another volunteer in the Arbor Bed--Nicotania.  I haven't planted any of these for five or six years, yet every year they keep coming back.

Back to the butterfly garden, the Butterfly Weed is just beginning to open up.  You can barely make out the blooms behind them of Phlox Pilosa, which have been blooming for more than a month.

The native/wildflower I am most excited about right now is the Indian Pinks, Spigelia Marilandica.  I planted these three or four years ago, and they are finally spreading out--a bit.  Although these are considered natives in Illinois, they are not found very often in natural settings, especially in central and northern Illinois.

Elsewhere in the garden, a couple of Asiatic lilies are blooming.  Both of these are NOIDS, probably passalongs from a friend.

I much prefer this brighter red one, but it's rather hidden away under taller plants at the back of the Arbor bed.  Maybe someday I'll get around to moving it to where it can really be seen.

The last two weeks have been poppy time.  I don't have as many as usual this year--I plant them in late winter, scattering them over the snow, so they tend to pop up in some strange places.  But we didn't have any late snow this year, so I have a feeling many of the seeds just blew away.

I don't grow many roses, but 'Zephirin Drouhin' is doing well climbing the arbor trellis, though the heat and drought have taken their toll on her, too.

Only a couple hydrangeas are blooming so far, including the 'Annabelles.'

I've planted two different hydrangeas at the back of the shade garden in the last few years that have really grown. One is a 'Mary Nelle,' a unique variation of 'Annabelle,' but I have no memory of what the other one is!

Another mystery at the front of the shade garden are these little purple blooms.  They seem to be coming from an Epimedeum, but I'm not sure--anyone recognize this plant?

The rest of the shade garden is growing to jungle proportions as usual.

Nearby, the miniature Japanese garden is almost ready for visitors.

Spirea blooming along the front of the house.

In the sidewalk garden one lavender plant is blooming, which makes me happy since I cut them back to the ground in the spring, not knowing at the time you should cut them back only by a third or so.

Some of the lamb's ears in the Lily Bed are sending up their quirky blooming stalks.

I took a break yesterday in the middle of writing this post, because I wanted to finish planting while the ground was soft from the overnight rain.  I can finally announce I have ALL my new plants planted!  (Well, except for three new shrubs . . . but they're going to wait till it's a little cooler.)  My back porch and patio no longer look like I'm holding my own plant sale:)  Some of those plants, I'm embarrassed to admit, had been sitting there since April 24, my first plant shopping trip.

I did lose a few annuals by holding them so long, some to poor watering by the gardener, and some to toads.  We have quite a family of toads here, much to the delight of the grandsons and Frank (the pug) and Teddy (the mini Yorkie).  While I'm happy to have them, they like to burrow into the moist soil of the pots.  Many times I've been startled while planting containers when a toad jumped out of one of the annuals!  It's not a problem, except when small pots have been sitting too long, as mine have,  and one of the fatter toads has burrowed in and out of the same pot, displacing some of the soil. Now that I've planted all those small containers, I'm not sure where the toads will sleep--I'd better not dig too deeply in my large pots:)

I think I went a little crazy this year buying annuals, especially petunias.  I won't show you all my annuals--this post is getting too long already--but I do want to share a couple of my favorite petunias.  This is 'Johnny Flame'; it really caught my eye when I saw it at our local nursery, and I quickly snapped up the last three, with no idea where to plant them.

Two favorites I buy every year--'Royal Velvet,' a dark purple planted in the porch planter here as well as several other containers, and the contrasting 'Bordeaux.'

One of my favorites I plant every year--Supertunia 'Raspberry Blast.'

Two new varieties I just couldn't resist this year--'Latte' and 'Black Mambo' (I think I have those names correct.)  I'm not usually a fan of black petunias, but I like this combo.

Although it seems as if I have a lot of blooms, most of my garden is still green right now.  The summer show of color won't begin for a couple more weeks.  Echinacea 'Cheyenne Spirit' is one of the early arrivals for the summer riot of color.

'Moonlit Masquerade' is always the first daylily--other than the Stellas--to appear.  It will soon be joined by many more.

And, of course, my summer garden wouldn't be complete without purple coneflowers.  A few are blooming, but the mass of blooms is still a week or two away.  I'm hoping they will bring back the butterflies that seem to have disappeared.

This weekend is the annual Garden Walk of our local Master Gardeners group, and I'll be very busy, especially since the nursing home garden, where I volunteer, is featured on the walk this year.  But I'll catch up with everyone's Bloom Day posts in a few days.

Thanks, as always, to Carol of May Dreams Gardens for hosting another Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day!

A Blue and White Wildflower Wednesday

July is the perfect time to celebrate native plants in my Midwest garden.  Besides the still-blooming coneflowers, there are rudbeckias, liatris, gaillardia, a native agastache, and Joe-Pye Weed all in bloom.  Asters and goldenrod are also showing the first signs of color, nearly a month earlier than usual.  While all of these would be appropriate candidates for this month's celebration of Wildflower Wednesday,  I wanted to focus instead on what is not in my garden.  For the past few weeks driving along the country roads and even the highways, I've been distracted by the clouds of blue and white blossoms billowing along the roadsides.

It has been too hot and muggy lately to pull off the roadside and tramp among the weeds, not to mention rather dangerous, but that wasn't necessary to take a photo.  All I needed to do was to walk out in my very back yard by the outbuildings and rusty farm implements to find similar images.  Clouds of white above . . .

. . . and blue nearby. My favorite color scheme.

Most people would classify chicory, Cichorium intybus, as a weed, but there are very few flowers in the garden that have the true sky-blue color of this plant.  Too bad it doesn't have prettier foliage, or gardeners would be adding it to their collection.  Chicory has been used as a medicinal herb since the days of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, but most people think of its use in more recent times as a coffee substitute.

Normally, I wouldn't have this proliferation of chicory, but with the drought, we haven't had to mow the lawn for weeks, and this weedy wildflower has added color to the back yard.  Notice the brown grass around this plant--don't you wish all our garden plants could survive the lack of rain like this?

The vision of white comes from the native Daucus carota, more commonly known as Queen Anne's Lace.   Again, many people think of this as a weed, but it has to be my favorite weed of all and one that I never pull or cut down.  In fact, some gardeners purposely plant this in wildlfower gardens, but I don't need to do that--I always have a plentiful supply.

Wild Carrot, as it is also known, has been used in the past as a medicinal herb, and some people have even eaten the root.  But wildflower sources caution eating the leaves, which can be confused with the very poisonous wild hemlock.  I may not have the wisdom of Socrates, but I don't think I would be tempted to try eating this plant:)  While Queen Anne's Lace may have had some useful purposes, I think its main purpose is simply ornamentation.

It has to be one of the most photogenic weeds wildflowers around, whether silhouetted against a weathered shed or growing through a rusty piece of machinery.

It's even attractive and interesting when not in bloom.

Although I wasn't able to capture a photo of either chicory or Queen Anne's Lace with an insect on it, both are attractive to various insects.  Black Swallowtail caterpillars also feed on Queen Anne's Lace.  Looking closely at the flower head, you can see that it is made up of a compound umbel, which terminates in smaller umbels, called umbellets.  A rather complex structure for such a simple, common plant!  No wonder I think it's so pretty.

I have been battling the weeds all summer long, but I have a soft spot for these two weedy wildflowers--they are welcome to stay--in my back yard!


For other wildflowers in bloom this very hot July, visit our gracious hostess and best friend of the pollinators, Gail at Clay and Limestone.

Wildflower Wednesday: Perennial Favorites

It's time for another Wildflower Wednesday, the monthly celebration of wildflowers and natives hosted by the gracious and enthusiastic Gail of Clay and Limestone.  It is perfect timing for me, as so many of my favorite natives are in bloom right now. Driving along country roads or even the interstate the past few weeks, one can't help but notice masses of the white umbels of Wild Carrot Daucus carota, or as I prefer to call it, Queen Anne's Lace.  In many places it is bordered by a profusion of blue blooms from Chicory Cichorium intybus.

Most farmers would say that Chicory is a weed, but I've always had a fondness for this weedy wildflower.  Probably it's the color, since blue is my favorite, and not many plants have such a true-blue bloom.  It pops up around our outbuildings each summer, and I'm inclined to let it stay.

I was hoping to get a long shot of the roadsides filled with chicory and Queen Anne's Lace, but pulling off a busy highway or a narrow country road didn't seem smart or safe.  So instead I pulled into a turn-off near my home to get a few close-ups.  Illinois is "The Land of Lincoln," and throughout the state you will find not only museums, but promotions of any ties the area has to the man many of us consider our greatest President. Just a mile from my home is this historical marker, where Kelly's Tavern once stood, a place where Lincoln once stayed during his days of riding the circuit practicing law.

Next to the marker is a small planting of various prairie plants, including tall Rudbeckia, Joe-Pye Weed, common milkweed, rattlesnake master, and other yet unidentified wildflowers.  I'm describing all this to you because when I downloaded my photos yesterday, my computer was acting up and I accidentally deleted all those photos, including what I thought were some great shots of butterflies--grrrrr.

But I did manage to save one of the best, this one of a rattlesnake master Eryngium yuccifolium. The unusual name of this native probably came from its use by some Native American tribes who used the leaves and fruit in their rattlesnake medicine song and dance.  As you can see, the bumbles and other pollinators love it; in fact, this whole area was full of buzzing creatures who didn't exactly appreciate my disturbing them to get a few photos--maybe they hexed my camera:)

I don't have to travel anywhere, though, to find natives this time of year.  The Joe-Pye weed Eupatorium purpureum has been impervious to the thugs in my butterfly garden this year and towers above them, though not to the exaggerated height I claimed in a previous post--it stands about 6 feet, not 10 feet tall.  This specimen does not have the purple tinge to its stem as many of these plants do, and for awhile this spring I wasn't sure if this really was Joe.  I was so glad to see it start blooming a few weeks ago and being reassured that it wasn't a giant ragweed instead!

A newcomer to my garden this year is Liatris spicata, planted from bulbs purchased at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show in March.  Talk about easy to grow!  The plan was to have them interspersed with white coneflowers to add some vertical interest in the arbor bed. The coneflowers didn't get planted, but the liatris filled in this area quite nicely on their own.  I planted eight bulbs, imagining eight spikes of purple, but as you can see, they are much more robust than that.

When the coneflowers start winding down, I get a little sad, but not to worry--the Susans take their place. All of them are re-seeders from previous years, so I won't even  try to identify them, though most, I suspect, are from original Rudbeckia hirta. I was a little disappointed in the turn-out in the butterfly garden, no doubt due to the proliferation of asters and obedient plants, but I was happy to see one specimen of the new 'Cherry Brandy' Rudbeckia return. Many of the returnees this year are taller and more slender, perhaps because of the limited space.  The Rudbeckia pictured above is in the lily bed, where I definitely did not plant it!  It doesn't fit into the planting scheme in this garden area, but with a cheery face like this, who would have the heart to pull it out?  I certainly didn't.

Finally, my favorite of all the natives--my beloved purple coneflowers Echinacea purpurea.  After a month of blooming, they're beginning to fade and look a bit ratty, but I still enjoy them.  Soon the goldfinches will be feasting on their center disks.

I've gone on and on before about the many admirable traits of purple coneflowers, so I won't repeat myself today, but if you would like to know more about these natives you can click on a much earlier post here. Suffice it to say, that they are pollinator magnets of the first order.

 

Butterflies have been scarce around here this year, but when one does arrive, it's sure to find the coneflowers.  This Monarch doesn't seem to mind that the flower has seen better days.  Attracting birds, bees, and butterflies, and pretty to boot--what more could you ask of a flower?

As a final note, it is still hot here in central Illinois, but we have had a few much-needed rainshowers over the last few days.  During this heat wave and near-drought, though, all the natives pictured above have been real troopers, braving the heat and lack of attention without complaining like their fussier non-native companions.  Another good reason to go native!

If you would like to know more about any of the native plants featured here, you might want to check out my favorite source, Illinois Wildflowers  Or better yet, check out this month's contributors to Wildflower Wednesday at Gail's.