My Long Pergola Garden in Summer
It's definitely mid-summer when my long and winding pergola is full of striking orange-colored tiger lily blooms.
This pergola, located on one side of a carriage road near my Tenant House, goes through several transformations during the year. In winter, the beds are bare and the bordering boxwood is enveloped in protective burlap. In late spring, a palette of bold purple alliums and blue camassia cover the area, followed by the delicate shades of lavender from the flowering clematis vines that wrap around each of the antique granite posts. And now, hundreds of brightly spotted tiger lilies line the garden bed - and they're thriving.
Enjoy these photos.
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- Tiger lilies, Lilium lancifolium, bloom in mid to late summer, are easy to grow, and come back year after year.
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- Native to China and Japan, these robust flowers add striking beauty to any border with their bright and showy orange colored blooms.
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- In winter, my pergola is sleeping – the boxwood border is covered in burlap and the beds are bare.
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- And this year, I restored the winding 300-foot pergola and replaced the 20-year old timeworn wood with new beams and cedar rafter tails.
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- By late May, this pergola garden is filled with lots of blue and purple flowers. This palette of colors is a big favorite at the farm – it grows more colorful and vibrant every spring.
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- The beds are filled with Camassia, Hyacinthoides or Spanish bluebells…
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- … And bright, big alliums.
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- And now it’s filled with bright, orange lilies – another big transformation.
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- Tiger lilies are covered with black or deep crimson spots, giving the appearance of the skin of a tiger. They have large, down-facing flowers, each with six recurved petals. Many flowers can be up to five inches in diameter.
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- The tiger lily’s petals bend back far during the flowering cycle, curling up against its own stem and exposing the stamens and pistol for visiting pollinators.
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- Lilies are well-known for having heavily pollinated stamens, which stain. When cutting, always remove the anthers to prevent a clothing disaster – just pinch them off with gloved fingers.
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- There are also a few white lilies in this bed – adding more interest to the long floral display.
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- This lily is white and orange with bright orange pollinated stamens.
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- The blackish, round “seeds” that develop in the axils of the leaves along the main stem are called bulbils.
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- The leaves can grow to three inches long and about 3/4-inch wide. They are medium green, narrow, smooth along their margins, and glabrous, clasping the stem at their bases.
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- And there are still many more lilies just waiting to open. Tiger lilies do best in full sun.
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- Along both sides of the pergola, I planted a hedge of smaller boxwood shrubs. I planted this side in 2017, and they’ve grown in so excellently.
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- This pergola starts across from my perennial flower cutting garden and runs along the carriage road leading to my Winter House. It’s one of the first gardens guests see when they come to visit.
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- On the granite posts, there are still a few lasting clematis flowers. I have always loved clematis, and over the years I have grown many varieties of this wonderful plant. It has also been called traveller’s joy, virgin’s bower, leather flower, or vase vine or “Old Man’s Beard,” because of the long fluffy seed heads that look similar to an old man’s beard.
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- Here’s a darker purple clematis still holding on to its color and form.
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- I also have pops of daylilies. The daylily is a low-maintenance perennial—easy to grow, virtually disease- and pest-free, and able to survive drought, uneven sunlight, and poor soil. The daylily’s botanical name, Hemerocallis, comes from Greek hemera “day” and kallos meaning “beauty”. The name is appropriate, since each flower lasts only one day. Despite their name, daylilies are not “true lilies.” Leaves grow from a crown and the flowers form on leafless stems called “scapes,” which rise above the foliage.
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- The entire pergola border and its surrounding gardens, trees, and other specimens provide a spectacular show every year. I am so proud of how it’s grown.
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