Midsummer Garden Blooms, Views

This year's garden blooms continue to delight. Even beyond the initial spring, early summer burst of color as seen in my last garden post, summer's heat and rain have brought about wild growth and more color. Let's take a look at some of what's been happening since early June in our Zone 7a garden landscape.

With all the sun's rays, my year-round garden reader needed some shades, I thought. ;) He stands amid bee balm (leaning a bit after some heavy rains), black-eyed Susans, and the edge of a butterfly bush on the right. The last of the spireas' first flush of blooms are seen in the foreground.

This is the amount of rain my little gauge captured in two separate days, mid-June. Great for growing!

Capturing macro views of blooms, such as this mandevilla, is always fun to do after a rain. The rain really did wonders for the recent transplants (no more babying, yay!), and encouraged lots of blooms on the hydrangeas and the hibiscus.

Above, you can see my recent limelight hydrangea transplant, as well as the already established endless summer blooms. After much staking and anticipation, the Lord Baltimore hibiscus did not disappoint, and they began blooming in the back landscape on June 26. This photo was taken July 2.

I love the blue & red against each other!

Here's a view very similarly angled as in the early summer garden post, but this time the hibiscus are blooming, as is the limelight hydrangea (behind the flag). The endless summer hydrangea show more of what we saw in early June.

The coneflowers transplanted in early June are established and well situated beneath the weeping blue cedar atlas.

Hard to capture, the weeping cedar atlas bends and twists over at least four 6' sections of brick wall. It is trained with the help of various strategic stakes and anchors in the brick wall.

The tree form butterfly bushes are going crazy with blooms and doing their job to attract their namesake.

In another area, just in front of the knockout roses which are trained upward against my brick wall, I have dwarf butterfly bushes in a lighter hue of purple than the tree form. They, too, are blooming.

The picture above is a silhouette of the knockout roses, taken from behind the brick wall on which they're trained, and the sun is in the western sky. I go into the garden at all hours to capture different light and features. That one was just before sunset.

The container plantings in the courtyard have grown to fill the width of their containers, and are beginning to spill over. The picture above shows the container by the hot tub just after planting (left, late May) and now (right, early July). The Indian grass is starting to push its plumes.

The containers near the sunroom are also spilling over. The hummingbirds are still hitting the natural food sources in the pentas and the bee balm and not so much my feeders. This is typical in my garden, and they really start hitting the feeders later in summer. The SunPatiens I bought this year (the hot pink in the hot tub container, the white in the sunroom container) are wonderful! I will buy those again, they're doing so well in full sun.

With such a profusion of garden blooms this time of year, it's perfect for clipping indoor bouquets. The picture above is of those I cut on the 4th of July, and they are still looking good as of this post publish. I took my vases (with water) outside and cut early in the morning. I dipped the hydrangea stems in alum spice immediately after cutting and immersed in the water. This helps preserve their blooms from wilting, which can otherwise happen within a couple hours, depending on the time of day you clip.

In another, lesser visible area of the garden, my sundial sits amid the mountain bluet blooms. This is near the clematis, which just finished its bloom cycle in late June.

Lastly, in the front (north) section of the landscape, the annuals are also doing well. The Lord Baltimore hibiscus (just around the corner of the house edge, behind the hollies), in this section just started blooming July 5, about 2 weeks later than the back landscape hibiscus.

It's a pleasure to join Pam at Everyday Living with the garden party she's hosting periodically this summer and early fall. If you haven't already, stop by and visit Pam's blog. You'll see lots of garden tours, and may just make a new friend.

Everyday Living

Rita C. at Panoply

Sharing: Amaze Me, DIDI,  BNOTP, Gardens Galore,  Show & Share, Inspire Me, Make it Pretty, The Scoop, Dagmar's Home, Celebrate Your Story, SYS, SYC, Delightsome Life H&G, Grace at Home, Vintage Charm, Foodie Friday & Everything Else