July Blooms in My Cutting Garden
This year's summer flowers are blooming so wonderfully in my cutting garden.
It takes a lot of time to maintain a flower cutting garden this large - we're constantly weeding and watering, especially during these warm summer months. Before every season, my gardeners, Ryan and Wilmer, add a layer of nutrient-rich compost made right here at the farm. And every spring, we add more and more flowering plants - making this space a colorful mix of beautiful and interesting specimens. In only a few years, this garden has really developed into one of the most eye-catching areas of Cantitoe Corners.
Right now, the beds are filled with poppies, lilies, rudbeckia, and shasta daisies - enjoy these photos.
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- All these flowers are thriving in my cutting garden – there is always something new to see every time I walk through the beds.
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- There are so many flowers blooming including this Alcea rosea, also known as hollyhock. The crisp white of its petals work nicely with the pinks and purple-blues. These plants can reach five to eight-feet tall and up to about four feet across.
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- The purple hollyhock, Alcea rosea ‘Halo Purple’, is rust resistant and can grow up to seven feet tall bearing numerous five-inch blooms. This hollyhock is very hardy and can easily continue flowering until the first frost.
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- Poppies produce open flowers that come in many colors from crimson red to pale pink. Poppies require very little care, whether they are sown from seed or planted when young – they just need full sun and well-drained soil.
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- Poppies are an attractive, easy to grow flower in both annual and perennial varieties, and they come in nearly every color of the rainbow. This poppy is called ‘French Flounce’.
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- ‘French Flounce’ opens into huge glamorous poufs of softly ruffled petals. They come in shades of pink, salmon, violet, scarlet, purple, deep red and white.
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- Here is another poppy in light pink with a bright green center.
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- Echinacea purpurea, or purple coneflower, is a hardy perennial, with large daisy-like flowers. It makes a lovely, water-wise choice for borders, native-grass lawns and gardens.
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- This is echinacea ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ – these flowers come in a mix of bright red, orange, golden yellow, and white, each surrounding a large brown cone. They are well-branched, strong and bushy specimens that brighten gardens of any size.
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- These are the strong, plumes of Astilbe, which has spread so nicely throughout the years. Astilbe is a genus of 18 species of rhizomatous flowering plants, within the family Saxifragaceae. Some species are commonly known as false goat’s beard and false spirea.
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- Canterbury bells is a popular plant reaching about two-feet tall. It thrives in full sun to partial shade and appreciates moist, well-draining soil and reasonably cool temperatures.
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- Scabiosa is in the honeysuckle family of flowering plants. Some also know members of this genus as pincushion flowers. This one is drought and deer resistant, and easily attracts bees and butterflies.
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- Many kinds of lilies bloom in my flower garden. I also have lilies along my winding pergola, outside my Winter House kitchen and in the sunken garden behind my Summer House. My collection of lilies is a combination of Oriental, Asiatic, trumpet, and Orienpet lilies.
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- Lilies come in a variety of colors with multiple blooms per stem. Tiger lilies bloom in mid to late summer, are easy to grow, and come back year after year.
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- These are the showy flower heads of rudbeckia. Rudbeckia’s bright, summer-blooming flowers give the best effect when planted in masses in a border or wildflower meadow. In general, rudbeckias are relatively drought-tolerant and disease-resistant. Flower colors include yellow and gold, and the plants grow two to six feet tall, depending on the variety.
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- Calendula has daisy-like bright orange or yellow flowers, and pale green leaves. Commonly called the pot marigold, Calendula officinalis, the calendula flower is historically used for medicinal and culinary purposes.
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- Heliotrope is a plant of the borage family, cultivated for its fragrant purple or blue flowers, which are used in perfume.
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- Phlox in bloom are hard to miss with their masses of small, star-shaped, colorful flowers blanketing the plants. There are several types, the most common of which are these summer-blooming tall phlox and the creeping phlox variety that grows in spring.
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- Phlox is long-blooming, hardy, and often fragrant. They come in a range of heights from two to five feet, and produce huge billows of bloom in mid to late summer.
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- Phlox also comes in a range of colors from pure white to lavender to red, and grow happily in most parts of the country. If properly planted and sited, they are largely pest and disease free too – a perfect perennial!
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- Achillea millefolium, commonly known as yarrow, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is a hardy perennial with fernlike leaves and colorful blooms. The large, flat-topped flower clusters are perfect for cutting and drying.
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- The feverfew plant, Tanacetum parthenium, is actually a species of chrysanthemum that has been grown in herb and medicinal gardens for centuries. Also known as featherfew, featherfoil, or bachelor’s buttons, the feverfew herb was used in the past to treat a variety of conditions such as headaches, arthritis, and as the name implies, fever.
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- This is a balloon flower, Platycodon grandiflorus. Balloon flowers get their name from the unopened buds, which swell up prior to opening and resemble little hot-air balloons. The opened flowers resemble those of bellflowers, and while most often deep blue or purple, white and pink varieties are also available.
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- Here are two balloon flowers that are just about ready to open.
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- Shasta daisy flowers provide perky summer blooms, offering the look of the traditional daisy along with evergreen foliage.They are low maintenance and great for filling in bare spots in the landscape.
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- These are California poppies in double form. They are easy to grow, and look stunning when sown in drifts with beautiful, mainly double, fluted flowers that reach up over fine, lacy foliage.
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- These are also excellent in annual borders and in containers. I love the pink colors of this cultivar.
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- When I planted this garden, I wanted the plants to be mixed, so every bed would be interesting and colorful. I think it is developing quite nicely. What flowers are blooming in your garden?
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