Those who have been following this blog for a few years might remember that my largest garden out back peaks during the first week or so of August. Despite the heat and lack of rain, it is right on time, though I’ve noticed that most plants are shorter than they were last year.
Annual garden
Soaker hoses are tucked into the left side where I plant annuals, whose seedlings need nurturing early on, and have used them a couple times in July to supplement the meager rainfall that fell.
Left to right: gold Gloriosa Daisies (Rudbeckia hirta), white Cleome hassleriana, in front of them are low plants of Mealycup Sage (Salvia farinacea), variegated Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus ‘Alaska’), Zinnia elegans ‘Thumbelina’, a row of Russett potatoes nestled next to Pot Marigolds (Calendula officinalis ‘Zeolights’). All the sunflowers behind were self-sown from last year’s plants, so the crosses are interesting to see. There is a row of purple Angelonia angustifolia and some purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) where the path forks.
Perennial garden
The perennials on the right side had to fend for themselves, resulting in shorter stems, but thankfully, didn’t seeem to affect the numbers of flowers.
Along the front are three Lamb’s Ears (Stachys byzantina), variegated Iris (I. laevigata), Japanese Blood Grass (Imperata cylindrica) and self-sown Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena). Next tier are yellow daylily (Hemerocallis ‘Hyperion’), more Coneflower, white Achillea ‘The Pearl’ and a daylily that just finished (H. ‘Happy Returns’). The final tier has blue Globe Thistle (Echinops ritro), pink Astilbe taquettii, more white Cleome and red Crocosmia ‘Lucifer.’
Here is a little slideshow of a few blooms:
Hope you enjoyed this little sample of things I’m viewing from my deck right now, along with the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.
Bumblebee/Sunflower
Eliza Waters 
Reblogged this on Blue Dragon Journal and commented:
Charming, simply charming!
Thank you so much, Eliza!
So beautiful Eliza!
Thank you, Cindy! ❤
I love your lovely garden.Well cared of .Thanks a lot for sharing.🌹👍🙏
Thank you kindly, Francis.
Most welcome.🌹👍🙏
Such a lovely garden, Eliza. An excellent selection of summer blooms! I know you get pleasure viewing it from your deck.
Thank you, March. We derive a lot of pleasure from our gardens, esp. these days!
Absolutely glorious! Interesting how the plants didn’t grow as tall during this dry summer. Makes sense, though.
Thank you, Laurie! The pink astilbes particularly are about 18″ shorter than last year, so I didn’t bother staking them as I usually have to do.
Wow!
Your back garden is spectacular, Eliza. I especially love the sunflowers. Mine were started very late (no self-seeding here) and I think they’re going to be disappointing again this year. Next year, I’m going to plant the seeds in pots if necessary to get a head start on the season. I paid a visit to my local garden center this afternoon to see if I could get sunflowers in pots and there was not a one to be had at any price.
Thank you, Kris. Sunflowers are so cheerful and I can hardly imagine not having them. But they are heavy drinker/feeders, so probably demand much from your garden. I think I might try pinching them next year to see if I can get them shorter. Way too tall!
Beautiful 🌸🌺🌼
Thank you, Karen! ❤
Such a wonderful garden you have, Eliza! A joy to see from your deck each day.
Thank you, Sandy! I esp. love having my morning cuppa out there. Heavenly!
Thank you very much: I have been looking forward to seeing this garden in its glory.
Thank you, Anne! Glad to share. 🙂
What a glorious garden!
Merci, Sheree!
So beautifully organized your garden is.
Thank you, Maria. 🙂 At least this year it is, haha! 😉
I really enjoyed my virtual walk around your garden, Eliza. So much colour in the flowers and they are all so beautifully displayed in the layers you have planted. I’ve been in my garden today. Gardening, and looking at other people’s gardens is such an enjoyable way to spend the day 🙂
You mentioned you’ve had a dry summer. Do you have tanks to collect water there? We are planning on installing a large tank in our yard, hopefully before our summer, so we have plenty of natural rain water to keep the garden happy.
Thank you, Joanne. Normally, we get adequate rainfall to keep the gardens happy (45″ annually, including snowfall). But CC is making the world hotter and the weather patterns I’ve known are changing, so we’re seeing more extremes of wet/dry, hot/cold. I worry about the plants being overstressed all the time!
Wow, what a garden. No wonder you can do so many lovely vases. I have 10 pots for flowers on the boat, geraniums, petunias, campanulas. The rest are herbs and strawberries. Not quite the same scope as you!!!
Thank you, Mary-Jane. Yes, I love having lots of flowers to look at and arrange. It makes me very happy to look down on this every day!
Wow Eliza! You have beautiful Large gardens! It must take a massive amount of work! But We do Enjoy seeing the “fruits” of your labors!!😊
🙂 Thanks, Reed. Yes, I do spend a lot of time out there, but it never feels like work, more like play, and I do enjoy seeing the results!
Your gardens are gorgeous, Eliza! Your love and care shows! 😊
Thank you very much, Donna! ❤
Your garden is beautiful. I see you back up to woods. Do you have deer or rabbits visit?
Thank you. Oh, yes, deer and bunnies both (chipmunks and voles as well). I have to string fishing line ‘fences’ around tasty plants to protect them from deer, and I put out net bags with pieces of Irish Spring soap in them, which seems to work well. Bunnies are impossible to keep out of the garden. They ate my sweet peas this year 😡 Sometimes I let the dog chase the rabbits, but if she runs through the plants that is hardly helpful!
You do have a lovely garden. (Suzanne)
Merci, Suzanne!
Beautiful! You are inspiring me to get think about my flowerbeds for next year. 😊
Thank you, Irene! I hear you, I’m always thinking ahead, too. 😉
What an eye popping display 😊. Gorgeous!
Thank you very much, Belinda!
Wonderful views you’ve created.
Thank you, Susie!
What a beautiful garden… a reflection of its owner! 🙂 xoxo
Aw, thanks so much, Marina! xo
😘🤗
Glorious! I always love seeing your garden in the height of summer. 😃 I love the pink day lily and am amazed how tall and bushy your sunflowers are despite a lack of rain. Mine are mostly spindly and I feel a bit guilty about not watering them, but it is such a bind putting all my pieces of hosepipe together to reach the bed! Enjoy your beautiful garden Eliza!
Thank you kindly, Cathy! Those sunflowers did benefit from being on the soaker hose side of the garden. They really are too big for the garden, but when they self sow in spring, I let them be, forgetting how big they really get!
Eliza, honestly, your posts are therapeutic!
🙂 Sweetest compliment ever– thank you, Isha!
❤️❤️🌼🌼
Very beautiful … what a green thumb you have among your other talents. I noticed plants are shorter here this year too. Last year we had record snow and this year a draught. Thanks for sharing your garden … it’s good for the birds, the bees and us!
Thank you very much, Denise!
So very beautiful and so serene.
Thank you very much Carol. Hope you’re having a good summer!
It’s been okay – different, but okay. July was very wet, not many sunny days at all – lots of rain and cooler than normal temperatures. But, we are still above the sods, as a friend used to say, and that is definitely something to be grateful for. I hope your summer is going well.
Opposite of you, our July (and now Aug.) has been hotter and drier than average. I agree with your friend, “Any day above ground is a good day.” We must make the most of it. 🙂
Absolutely!
Beautiful garden and a wonderful rainbow of colors. Do you have to combat invasives backed up to the woods? Here I would have to battle a number of them.
Do you mean like honeysuckle and multiflora roses? We mow the fields once a year and periodically go through and remove woody stuff along the wood edges. Further toward the river is wild and probably 80% invasive. I have no hope of eliminating that much off of 7 acres! The birds would just reseed it all anyway.
It looks delightful Eliza.
Thank you, Andrea. x
What a lot of colour and variety. Viewing the garden from the deck must be an absolute tonic.
Thank you, Carol. I would sit there all day if I could! Meals are taken there when the weather is good and I esp. love it first thing in the morning. Definitely a tonic.
So nice to be able to have meals outdoors and it must be wonderful to be out overlooking the garden first thing in the morning too.
Since so much of the year here is too cold to be comfortably outside, I spend as much of the warmer months out enjoying and absorbing the heat as I can.
Even nicer to be able to make the most of the summer warmth in such a lovely garden.
GORGEOUS garden views Eliza! 😍
Thank you very much, Julie! ❤
It is indeed paradise and absolutely beautiful!🙂 Enjoyed the view and lovely slideshow!🙂
Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed it! x 🙂
I picture you on a deck overlooking that gorgeous garden and enjoying it mightily over meals and drinks…
Definitely my happy place! 🙂
What a delightful view. I love how you’ve planted the tiers depending on plant/flower height and so on. As a horticultirist, some might call that a natural and obvious design, but I’ve seen other residential gardens with far less planning.
Well done and thanks for sharing this summer’s display. It’s so beautiful and well worth the work you’ve put in.
Thank you kindly, Vicki! ❤
Your garden looks amazing Eliza and I can imagine what a treat it is to spend time tending, nurturing and enjoying the fruits of your labour with the bees, butterflies and hummingbirds 🤗💖
🙂 Thank you, Xenia. I do love our summertime!
Gorgeous!!!
Thank you, Val! ❤
That is a beautiful garden. It looks huge
Thank you, Paulie. It measures about 30′ x 60′ … my largest, but there are many more all around the house that keep me busy!
Wow,.wondrous. I know you are savoring this time; It all looks fabulous, I loved seeing your garden at its height. The Cleome (white in back of the border) and the Lambs Ears especially. Potatoes, too!? A friend planted some sunflowers here in June, they are over 7 feet tall. Enjoy! Glad Isaias missed.
Thank you, I am definitely cognizant that our warm days are numbered and am embracing every ray of sunshine while I can! It was 58 last night – the first dip below 60 since June. The days are shorter, too, the birds are getting ready to leave… things that are tough to accept!
On a whim in May, I planted some sprouted potatoes rather than throw the in the compost. I am eagerly anticipating fresh, baked potatoes!
Wow??? 58. Stay outside all day! I did the same potato thing with Redskin a couple of years ago.. really good and sandy, wash throughly!
You taught me something: I’ve never heard of Rudbeckia hirta being called a gloriosa daisy. Down here in Texas, I’ve most often heard Salvia farinacea being called mealy blue sage.
Yes, there are regional differences in common names, so I try to include the Latin as well. Interestingly, I recently learned that Gloriosa daisies are a tetraploid developed in the 50s by a Smith College botanist. Very close to home.
So if I understand this, “gloriosa daisy” would apply only to the cultivar, not to the wild Rudbeckia hirta. If so, that would explain why I’ve never heard the native ones here called anything other than black-eyed or brown-eyed Susans.
Yes, Gloriosas are a self-sowing tetraploid, larger and marked variously with burgundy splotches, which don’t occur on the smaller native R. hirta.
Your garden is just beautiful Eliza! Love the backdrop of the trees too.
Thank you, Carol!
What a lovely wedge of paradise, even with the ‘wild life’ to contend with.
Thank you, Alice. The critters sure do make things interesting! Btw, I found my first M.larva, which I took in. I worried about it yesterday as it seemed esp. still, but it moulted this morning, pretty cool, all is good!
Just like your arrangements, the gardens are works of art. So are your photographs of them. Obvious labors of love. 🙂
Thank you very much, Steve!
Such a pleasure to behold this multitude of blooms! Stunning garden!
Thank you, Vanessa!
Always look forward to the walk through your garden.
Thank you, Gary. Glad to share it!
Congratulations, Eliza, on your beautiful garden and your lovely slide show. 🙂
Thank you, Carol!
Amazing
Thank you, Subhi!
WOW! … full of fabulous flowers!
Thank you, Denise. I love this view, it makes me very happy! 🙂
absolutely beautiful!! i love your garden, it is very well cared of👍🏼 thank you for sharing💞
Follow @everythingtips for tips and recommendations if interested! It would mean a lot to me!🥺🤍
Thank you!
This is so beautiful
Thank you for sharing it
Stay well and laugh when you can
Thank you!
Stunning garden, just gorgeous x
Thank you kindly!
That’s a beautiful garden ❤
Thank you, Sheri!