Summer Blooms in the Garden
Happy first day of summer! Later today here in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun will reach its highest point in the sky marking the annual summer solstice - the longest day and shortest night of the calendar year.
Early summer is such a wonderful time, especially at my farm, when the gardens are looking so lush and beautiful. My large flower cutting garden continues to burst with new blooms each day. This garden is quite large - it measures 150-feet by 90-feet, and in order to keep it looking its best, we're constantly weeding and watering, and then weeding again. Every season, I add a number of flowering plants to this collection. And now, it is so full of color - it has really developed into one of the most eye-catching areas of Cantitoe Corners.
Enjoy these photos.
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- I love walking through this garden on early summer mornings. There is always something new in bloom. This year, this large space has exploded with gorgeous flowers – every bed is full.
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- One of the big features this week are the poppies.
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- Poppies are an attractive, easy-to-grow flower in both annual and perennial varieties.
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- Here is a poppy flower with fringed leaves. The flowers are attractive to pollinators like honey bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. They usually grow to at least a foot tall and have one bloom per stem.
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- Poppies come in such a large variety of sizes, shapes, and forms.
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- And they come in nearly every color of the rainbow.
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- Here’s another poppy with its silky grayish crepe paper-like bloom. The flowers have four to six petals, many stamens forming a conspicuous whorl in the center of the flower and an ovary of from two to many fused carpels.
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- This poppy has a reddish center that lightens to pink at the edges. Poppies require very little care, whether they are sown from seed or planted when young – they just need full sun and well-drained soil. All the poppies in the garden were grown from seed in my greenhouse.
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- And another in lighter shades of gray and purple.
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- And here’s a white poppy. The petals are crumpled in the bud and as blooming finishes, the petals often lie flat before falling away.
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- Also blooming wonderfully are the delphiniums. Delphinium flowers have showy, spiky blooms on tall, sometimes towering stems. Blue is the most common color, but numerous hybrids are available in shades of white, pink, lavender, red, and yellow.
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- These are also quite pretty – delphinium in a light lavender color.
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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 hardy yarrow plant is long-lasting and attracts scores of pollinators while in bloom.
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- Dianthus flowers belong to a family of plants which includes carnations and are characterized by their spicy fragrance. Dianthus plants may be found as a hardy annual, biennial, or perennial and most often used in borders or potted displays.
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- There are numerous types of dianthus – most have pink, red, or white flowers with notched petals. The plants are small and usually between six and 18-inches tall.
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- This is the tall and stately foxglove plant, Digitalis purpurea. These add lovely vertical interest to any garden. Foxglove flowers grow on stems which may reach up to six feet in height, depending on the variety.
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- The flowers are clusters of tubular-shaped blooms that come in pink, white, lavender, yellow, red, and purple. Foxgloves thrive in full sun to partial shade to full shade, depending on the summer heat.
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- In this garden, I grow Lady’s mantle, Alchemilla vulgaris, along both sides of the main path. It is a clumping perennial which typically forms a mound of long-stalked, circular, scallop-edge light green leaves, with tiny, star-shaped, chartreuse flowers.
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- The Japanese iris, Iris ensata, is an easy-to-care-for flower that loves wet conditions. This flowering perennial is available in a range of colors, including shades of purple, blue and white, with attractive medium green foliage.
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- And don’t forget all my many roses in this flower garden – they’re still looking so stunning. I have roses in a variety of colors including shades of pink, apricot, white, and yellow.
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- Here’s another beautiful and bright pink rose. I hope your garden is also doing wonderfully this season. Share what blooms you are growing in the comments section below. And, have a happy first day of summer.
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