I'll be first. Not much to show in my new garden, but some things are finally blooming. I seem to be all about pinks and purples with this garden, and the pinks are starting to show. I planted 'Heaven's Gate' coreopsis, and I do like the colors.

It's in a bed with 'First Love' Veronica, Dianthus 'Ideal Select Salmon', and some coreopsis 'Peach Sparkle'. All are in their first year in the bed. When they mature I think I'll like it. When the coreopsis come into full bloom this year it should look even better.

I wintersowed Dianthus 'Lace Perfume' and 'Rainbow Loveliness', one of which is in this photo.

Looks amazing for a first year bed!

Thank you! I am VERY excited. I like how things are looking grouped together, which ties back to some of our discussions on other threads. I think this is a step up for me. YEA!

Very pretty, deannatoby; you're off to a great start!

A little off-topic, but I consider my seasonal deck inhabitants, AKA houseplants, to be part of my garden.

My clivia 'Golden Dragon' is blooming again on my deck! It bloomed indoors last March and I didn't expect a rebloom in the summer.

That's a seedpod ripening on a flower stalk left over from last summer when it bloomed in July. I'm hoping it will contain viable seeds when it finishes ripening.

Sitting on the deck on a hot afternoon I'm watching the fruit developing on the doublefile viburnum next to the deck. Here it's just peering over the top of the railing.

If I get up and look over the edge I see more fruit.

The birds have been watching the fruit too. The catbirds are industriously picking off the ripe ones, and I've seen a cardinal and a robin too. I haven't mastered photographing through deck railings.

The 'Summer Snowflake' viburnum still has flowers along with some fruit.

Claire

Claire, I appreciate your attention to the wildlife in your yard. I need to do better at that, and I'm hoping as my pollinator bed develops I'll have some more obvious things to look at. And, to be honest, I need to direct my attention outwards more. There's just so much that needs to be done inside...

Thanks for all your beautiful pictures!

Thanks, deannatoby, for the nice comments. For me, watching the wildlife gives another layer of meaning to the garden - all those plants are more than exterior wallpaper, they're important sources of food to myriad critters.

Claire

While searching for the ID of a weed resembling echinacea but with narrower leaves and very very very small pink flowers, I naturally came upon the name of this all-white flower that looks nothing like an echinacea, because that's just how effective my internet searching must be. My boys found this in the woods today, and it's like finding a purple zebra at the zoo. It's a Monotropa uniflora, Ghost Flower or Indian Pipe. Instead of chlorophyll, it feeds via a fungus in the soil.

You're raising your boys well, deannatoby, for them to notice the Indian Pipe! I saw some a couple of years ago, also in August. It's another good reason to leave leaf litter on the ground.

Claire (always looking for reasons to leave plant debris on the ground)

Tis the season! I noticed Indian pipes beginning to punch their way up through the leaf litter in our woods yesterday. These odd and ancient plants fascinate me! Your boys have a good eye for things in the natural world!

I remember a picture of yours, Claire. I felt envious.

Love that yellow Clivia Claire!

A few photos from this morning

Crape Myrtle

Mustard

Southern magnolia

Morning glory

Yard long green bean

Sunflowers

Full

Zucchini

Hens n chicks

Canna

Some foliage plants

tetrapanax leaves get 2' wide and larger

Schefflera delavayi sending up three blooms

Dinosaur food

Varigated ginger

Voodoo lily

Hardy elephant ears

Illicium seed pods

Looking at timbz6's garden pics I'm often amazed that these plants are actually growing (and obviously happy) in New England.

My garden is much tamer and mostly inhabited by old standards. A few things from today:

Daylilies carrying on:

H. 'Autumn Minaret'

H. 'Yao Ming'

H. 'Frans Hals'

Old-fashioned Tiger Lily (Lilium lancifolium)

I decided this year to forego deadheading the rugosas because I wanted to see the hips. If my mother were still alive she'd be in the kitchen cooking up some rose hip jelly.

I'm getting lots of hips but the rugosas are still blooming too, to the delight of the bees.

Rose 'Blanc Double de Coubert'

And of course there are phlox. The phlox in the alley are showing no signs of stopping:

And Phlox 'David's Lavender' is just starting up:

Claire

timbz6 your variegated ginger is an attractive plant. I wish it were winter hardy!

Claire, my tiger lilies are blooming now too, and I'm so delighted that the red beetles haven't killed them. My phlox should be in full glory in a few more days. Yours are lovely.

Alas I'm zone 4 and the ginger would never survive our winters. Too bad because it would look nice in my brook-side garden!

Spedigrees, in our climate the ginger can take some full sun too. Mine gets full sun from 10am to 1pm. It may be hardier than 6a too if sited properly and mulched.

"Japanese ginger, Zingiber mioga(shown at left), is reliably hardy in USDA Hardiness Zone 7 and has been reported to overwinter as far north as USDA Hardiness Zone 5. It is grown primarily as a foliage plant since its yellow flowers—which bloom well into late summer—appear near the base of the plant. In Japan, the edible flowers are harvested and pickled."

http://www.usna.usda.gov/Gardens/faqs/Subtropicals.html

Thanks. I'd been about to ask whether or not this particular ginger was edible.

timbz, I love your Crepe Myrtle. They were wonderful southern stalwarts. I didn't realize they were hardy up to zone 6. And you have a Southern Magnolia, too! Love their scent.

Claire, I love the old fashioned lilies. I saw my first in NH and loved how they draped their heads down. Reminds me to find some for my shade areas here.

Deannatoby, the southern magnolia is 'Edith Bogue', not all S. Mags will survive our winters. Same is true with Crape Myrtles, mine is a hardy form.

Not much is blooming here that doesn't look dried out, and a lot of the foliage is yellow and brown, a sure sign that summer is winding down. These golden glow "outhouse flowers" aka rudbeckia laciniata are putting on a good show though.

Dill and cosmos in the vegie patch...

and Indian pipes along our wooded path.

Our phlox hasn't even started blooming yet. Buds aren't anywhere close to mature. Echinacea just started blooming. We've got some days left, but things are getting thirsty. They should be glad for the rain we're getting this weekend.

More Indian pipes, spedigrees! I was driving along a rural road a few days ago and I glanced at a yard which has a vast mulch wasteland between mature trees. This always annoys me - think of all the plants that would love it there! Then I noticed several patches of Indian pipes growing in the mulch and I thought better of the homeowners who let them grow. I'm sure they noticed because this is a very well manicured yard.

Claire (who will never have a well manicured yard)

Gingers are blooming

A delicate, light purple form of Crape Myrtle

If I ever move south of zone 4, ginger will definitely have a place in my landscape. The variegated foliage was lovely, but the blooms are spectacular! I shall just add ginger to my list of things that I pine for but can't have, along with a crape myrtle tree, a sweet cherry tree, iris other than the Siberian kind, blackberry lilies, etc.

Very few things are photo-worthy here at this time. One of my volunteer sunflowers is blooming in the vegetable patch and tiny summer squashes are beginning to form.

My hen and chicks are thriving in this spot (below). The plant to the right of the ceramic chicken sprang from discarded and apparently dead hen and chicks that had lived in a pot for several years. I dumped the contents of the pot in this spot last fall and to my amazement I discovered this past spring that it had been reborn during the harsh winter on the rocks. Apparently life in the flower pot was never to its liking and it chose this rocky spot instead as its new home. Since then it has grown a new crop of "chicks" as have some of the other plants I added as companions.

These three photos don't look like much, but they were a long time coming.

This spring I planted morning glories and moon flowers by this trellis at the back of the house and they have been struggling with the lack of sufficient sunlight. This is one of several garden spots that I am transitioning to homes for shade plants. Next year I shall plant my morning glories next to a newly installed trellis along a fence where they will receive sun all day long, and plant an arctic beauty kiwi vine in this spot which has the sun's rays only until noon.

Despite the solar deficiency, this heavenly blue MG managed to produce one flower. The non-heart-shaped leaves on the left belong to the moon vine which shows no promise of buds or flowers this year. These leaves are fuzzy and I am drawn to pet them every time I walk by!

Again, these flowers are nothing remarkable, but pansies have always grown well in this brook side garden, back when it was a sunnier location, so I planted these (from seed) without thinking it through. It took them all summer to bloom, but better late than never!

And, finally, one of the shade plants I did actually plant this year in an appropriate spot is finally blooming and promises to produce many more blooms, on this and other stems. I ordered two of these plants this spring and they have grown well. I've always admired toad lilies, and now I have some!

Teddy bear sunflowers starting to bloom