July in the Northern Hemisphere

[shelagh]

Well we have crept into July and a rainy day means I have time to post these.

Broadia Queen Fabiola.

Campanula White Clips.

Campanula Wockii Puck.

Campanula lost label.

Correopsis Golden Sphere.

[shelagh]

Erigeron fletti.

Heuchera-  a self sown seedling. Not like any other in the garden.

Sedum album coming over the edge of the raised bed.

Sedum dasyphyllum Lloyd Praeger.

Stachys grandiflorum in the border seed from Gothenburg Botanic.

[shelagh]

Sweet Williams or Dianthus barbatus trough.

Veronica and St.  John's Wort.

Finally Veronica longifolia First Love.

[Maggi Young]

Your rainy day is our gain, Shelagh! Some  lovely plants there!

[Robert]

Shelagh,

I enjoy the simple beauty of the Sweet William. 



I am settling into my life of retirement. A great deal of time is spent gardening.

While harvesting seed of F₃ generation Gila capitata I noticed that a number of plants were repeat blooming. I will keep an eye on this characteristic in next year’s grow out.



The oriental lilies are blooming and the air is filled with fragrance.



I grow all of our lilies from seed. There are only one or two named varieties in our garden.



The Helianthus annuus are starting to bloom. I have always grown sunflowers, so the garden would not be right without them. Simple, but then it makes me feel happy seeing them each season.



The same is true with Zinnia elegans, the garden would not be complete without them. My mother grew them in our family garden back in the 1950’s. I breed my own varieties these days. This is fun and interesting.

[Robert]

I grew this lily from seed as Lilium philippinense. I am not so sure, but it blooms later than our other trumpet lilies. It also has been a very tough and persistent plant, a quality I like in lilies.



I guess I am the resilient gardener-mini farmer. This is a bed of Solanum melongena ‘Long Purple’, an open pollenated variety I obtained from the folks at Ecology Action (Great people and like Masanobu Fukuoka, the real thing! I support them and their work 100%. I cannot say enough good things about this small non-profit organization). They do not offer seed any more, however all the seed I ever obtained from them was of the highest quality and performs exceptionally well in our garden or farm. I am keeping this line going by saving the seed. The bagged flowers prevent cross-pollination. I sibling cross the best plants and keep very careful records of the results (many characteristics).

Next to this bed is a beautiful specimen of Penstemon azureus var. angustissimus. This Penstemon species, from the Upper Sonoran Life Zone in our area, thrives in our garden. I grow a number of different forms from local but differing sites. They are not blooming now but this native species is a gem in our garden, thriving with intense summer heat and little to no irrigation during the hot summer and autumn months.

[ArnoldT]

Robert

Does your Lilium philippinense have stem bulbils?

[Robert]

Robert

Does your Lilium philippinense have stem bulbils?

Hi Arnold -

No stem bulbils! In other characteristics the lily does not look like Lilium philippinense. The lily is strong and persistent so I am keeping it for right now. At some point it might be nice to grow a few other hybrid trumpet lilies from seed and see if I get anything different. The plants look good in our garden and are frequently fragrant. My wife and I like fragrant plants in our garden.

[ArnoldT]

Robert

Good that rules out some of the Chinese trumpets.

[Leena]

All this summer has been hotter than usual here, today temperature was over 30C which is a lot here when we are not used to these kind of temperatures. Forecast says all July is going to be 4-6 degrees warmer than average, and August may be the same:(.
Because it rained couple of times a lot in June plants are still looking quite good, and many are flowering ahead of normal. Like Hemerocallis fulva which usually flowers in August and it has now already started to flower. White flower is Campanula latifolia.
Some Meconopsis baileyi are still in flower and also Primulas grown as P.x bullesiana, really nice primulas.
Third picture is Lilium pardalinum with hosta, Pseudofumaria lutea and Astrantia 'Star of Fire'.

[Leena]

Malva moschata seeds around but I like it, both white and pink versions of it.
Also Geranium 'Patricia' is one of my favourites and doesn't seem to suffer for heat and drought.
Last peony to flower here was 'Myrtle Gentry', growing in quite shady spot, but it is over now.

[Yann]

A very tiny genius by the size of their flowers but not by the number of species: Lappula barbata

[ian mcdonald]

Thanks Yann, they are very similar to Myosotis, same family. Everyone seems to have colourful gardens, I,m still looking for one and miss the plants.

[Tristan_He]

Thanks Yann, they are very similar to Myosotis, same family. Everyone seems to have colourful gardens, I,m still looking for one and miss the plants.

I'm sorry Ian. I can't imagine what it must be like to be without a garden! At least you have your nature walks.

[Tristan_He]

Anagallis tenella is flowering nicely in the pitcher plant pots. Although this is a British native the clones in cultivation seem frost tender, so I have to keep it in the greenhouse over winter.



Geranium palmatum is always a riot (this is part of one plant) and very attractive to bees and other insects. It's short-lived, but self-seeds gently around the garden, never becoming a nuisance. Unlike the other Macaronesian geraniums it is reasonably frost hardy and so should survive in most zone 8 and possibly zone 7 gardens.



Sometimes you get happy coincidences in the garden and this is not a very good photo of one of them - Campanula barbata and Allium cyathophorum var. farreri. The Campanula is from seed we collected on holiday in 2015, and it seeds itself around the rockery. The Allium was from the seed exchange a couple of years ago and it's an imposter as it was supposed to be A. narcissiflorum. Still, the dark purple and steel blue look good together with the purple slate. 



Allium insubricum. Although slow-growing, this one deserves to be on every rockery.



Campanula cochlearifolia - beautiful but invasive, it really needs to be kept somewhere it can be contained.