July always means day lilies. And deadheading. I wasn’t sure how the day lilies would take to a young standard poodle on the rampage. She has trampled some of them, but they really need to be moved anyway. The tardiva hydrangea is casting too much shade. Finding a new spot for those will be a fall project. The pictures above show First Knight (yellow), Strutter’s Ball (dark pink), and the ever wonderful scarlet crocosmia in the background. The peach is Kathy Perkins.
The zinnias and shasta daisies are bloomin’ their little brains out. And the purple petunias are filling in. I always plant purple petunias because of their vanilla fragrance. They are especially fragrant in the evening. My new fence has forced me to re-imagine my in-ground watering system. I have pots searching for water and I keep misjudging where the spray is. I’ve turned the system on a bunch of times for just a minute so I can inspect the spray pattern, but, I’ve still got pots that aren’t getting enough water.
The pots in the front are doing well. There are two drip lines that keep them watered. The blackberry lilies in the front garden are starting to open up. And, the Secret Garden is hosting some katydid nymphs. This isn’t the first time. Some katydid nymphs can do a lot of damage, but these seem to belong to a different club. This one is doing whatever katydid nymphs do in a Saloam Double Classic daylily.
And as for this last bloom…I thought I had something special growing in my garden–a lady slipper. It is a lady slipper, but it is not native and it is highly invasive. Epipactis helleborine is not a friendly species. It might look innocent, but where it invades, it chokes out native species. And that impacts pollinators and other species. I have at least a dozen of these growing in the south west corner of my lower garden. They are going to die this week.
Garden 337 