Cait's Garden

Depending on where the first frosts are in our future, we have maybe two solid months of flowers to enjoy before autumn strikes. Since the bulk of my garden started up in May, I am now two months in with about two months left to go. It has been a remarkable July. First, we had a drought that stood to make this the driest July on record, then we had torrential rains that made this the wettest July on record. I am hoping for the sake of my vegetable garden that the weather now equalizes a bit. But the flowers, I must say, are thriving, despite the extreme conditions. If this July isn’t proof of the power of native flowers, I don’t know what is. Much of my garden has its roots in native plants (even though they have been hybridized somewhat), and it takes more than record drought and flood to take out a coneflower! Here’s a small snap of what I’ve got going on at present. Lots of color, lots of fun shapes and sizes, and lots to enjoy.

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Many gardens are not looking so fine at this point in the summer. And rarely do I see an entrance to a garden that makes me go “wow.” So it is with double the pleasure that I post this photo from my garden mentor, my mother, taken just this week. As you walk from the front of her house, around the side and into the backyard, you are greeted by an Aphrodite Rose of Sharon (on the left) and an old-fashioned charmer of a combination of yellow black-eyed susan, pink phlox, and fluffy white Annabelle hydrangeas on the right. Plus a nifty wrought iron garden decoration. I even enjoy the magnolia tree in the middle of the photo, which has bright green foliage all summer. If you have a fabulous backyard, you probably already have some flowers spilling over to the front, but it’s fun to consider what glimpse of your yard passersby get as they walk by.

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I love love LOVE Annabelle Hydrangeas. They are dreamy and cool and wonderful. They light up any yard and the flower heads are actually huggable, like fluffy pom-poms. This classic hydrangea is in the “Hydrangea arborescens” family and blooms on both new and old wood…a key factor for reliable hydrangeas in our colder zone. There are now pink varieties of this shrub available and while those are nice, nothing can beat this charmer, which opens white and eventually turns a cool green in late summer. They do best in areas with a little shade (Southern exposure would stress them out a bit). The only negative is, due to the size of the flowers, these shrubs can flop, especially after a storm. I used to have them by my front door, but the flopping made them a little too messy. Now they are in the backyard and can sprawl happily.

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The ornaments and trinkets we choose to display in our yards are often haphazard, but that is the charm in it, I think. Years of accumulating odds and ends through art shows, garden centers, garage sales, and your own ingenuity is the best way to achieve a customized-to-your-yard approach. I personally have a very casual, whimsical yard in terms of my flower choice. Lots of bright and unusual flowers, many of them tall, with no set color palette. So I will not be the person with the faux marble Greek lady with an urn statue. That looks great in some gardens, but I prefer my rusty metal ostrich, made by an artist from old shovels and tools. And you can’t go wrong with metal obelisks and trellises, especially those with pretty scrolled designs. It’s so easy to “redecorate” those from year to year with a can of spray paint. And they are easy to move around throughout the year if you need to cover bare spots or prop up a tall plant. And I love tiny cement animals (think frogs and bunnies) that I can tuck here and there. I prefer the unpainted kind (they never wear out) and they can dress up a blah corner in a second. This year, I finally added my own version of a “bottle tree” with brightly colored wine bottles hung from the ends of a few sturdy tree branches I stuck in the ground. I imagine the branches will rot eventually and I’ll have to re-do those trees, but that’s part of the fun. Things rust, things change. You try new things.  Just like with plants!

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There’s not much to say about this photo except yes, the flower really is that bright. I had difficulty capturing this flower’s in-your-face, glowing, neon red-orange, “I can’t believe it’s that fiery” color on my camera until I got this glamour shot in the fading light. This coneflower will seriously rock your garden world. It’s tall, robust, and the color makes it worth every penny of the exorbitant prices you will probably pay for this newer hybrid at the garden center. This plant will make people who care nothing for gardening ask you what that flower is. There are many coneflower hybrids to choose from, and many are nice, but not all live up to their billing. This one does and then some. 

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I love Balloon Flowers, especially the more compact varieties, which look like little balloon bouquets. This is a rare flower in which the bud is just as cool as the flower, as it really does look like a miniature hot air balloon about to explode. And when the balloon does pop, the flower is outstanding. It’s a fun plant to own. And it requires little care, being quite drought-tolerant. While the taller varieties can get kind of leggy and need either staking or the support of other tall plants, the traditional varieties are quite sturdy little plants with attractive, non-floppy foliage. Party time is the month of July for this charmer.

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Helenium, also called “Helen’s Flower,” was named after the famed Helen of Troy. I’m not sure an orange and red prairie flower qualifies for that refined a moniker. This is kind of a silly looking plant that gets about 3 feet high and is just a touch floppy.  This particular variety, “Moerheim Beauty,” is more freestanding that other heleniums, which need staking. Indeed, it is standing up on its own thus far, but I also have it propped against other tall and robust flowers.  I’ve only had this plant for two summers and I am quite impressed with its performance so far. It seems impervious to our weird weather conditions and the color is outstanding. The flowers are small, but intense orange and red. They have been blooming for about a week now, which is odd, because they shouldn’ t be blooming until late July. Apparently, our weather at present is mimicking August. Oh well, I’m enjoying them now.

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I feel pretty good about myself as a flower gardener. Perhaps “Flower Goddess” is a bit of an exaggeration, but on good days, I do feel that way. Give me perennials and I can make something beautiful happen. But vegetables, ah, vegetables. They are a mystery to me. Unlike my perennials of choice, they are not indifferent to weather and watering. They are, like farmers’ crops throughout time, susceptible to the slightest weather issues. You have to baby them, give them regular water, monitor for bugs and blight. And after all that, you still might not get a good result. Vegetables are complicated, and I know I am too ignorant of their ways, even after attempting a vegetable patch for many seasons.  This year, I have a revamped veggie garden with a partially raised bed to improve drainage. I also planted fewer plants to give things room to breathe and I tried pole beans for the first time. So far, frequent use of organic anti-fungal has kept the dreaded tomato leaf diseases at bay, but the pole beans are showing signs of some sort of leaf infection at their base. So I am picking off the yellow leaves, spraying anti-fungal, and hoping I don’t have an empty bean trellis this year. That’s why I have so many flowers around my vegetable garden perimeter. It’s my way to insure that my vegetable mistakes are blocked from view by my proven winners.

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If you were an artist working with paint instead of flowers, you’d appreciate the way these two plants enhance each other in the garden. Orange and purple might make for a too bold painting for inside your house, but in the garden, what a dynamite combination it is. Here we have Stachys Monieri “Hummelo” (also known as Betony) in the foreground and Asclepias Tuberosa (Butterfly Weed) in the background. Both plants are a little exotic. Butterfly Weed is that true, hot, perfect orange and Stachys has those stiff, bottle-brush purple flowers. They are tough, bold plants that thankfully bloom at the same time, although the Butterfly Weed will outlast the Stachys by quite a few weeks. Still, at present, this combo is a garden win for me, the bees, and this blog.

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“Knautia macedonia Mars Midget” has a fun name. And it is a very fun plant. If this flower shape looks familiar, you’ll be interested to know this plant is from the “Scabiosa” family. You’ve probably seen its more commonly found cousin “Butterfly Blue” Scabiosa at garden centers everywhere. However, I can’t keep a Butterfly Blue alive for more than two years, whereas I’ve had Mars Midget for 3 years already. This family of flowers, I’ve learned, can be short-lived in hot, humid climates. Which describes a Chicago summer perfectly.

In fact, I thought this plant had perished over the winter, but then it came back. Apparently, there’s also a chance it will self-seed, although I haven’t seen that happen yet. This is an adorable, true-red flower that comes in silly, airy profusion over a neat mound of grayish-green foliage all summer long. They truly do look a bit like flowers from another planet. They like full-sun and are drought-tolerant. I am hoping this one lives a long time. If it doesn’t, I will be tempted to buy a new one anyway, even though it violates my rule against fussy perennials. It’s just that cool of a plant.

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