The Joy and Anticipation of a Summer Garden
Find enjoyment and solace in the leaping plants, full of green hope before the display of colorful seasonal blooms
Like some gardeners, I’m too hard on myself. And I’m especially hard on myself when I don’t see enough flowers in the early summer shoulder season. After the spring flush, it’s hard to accept that nature ebbs and flows — that it almost needs to — and that even a showy garden should embrace the quieter moments as purposeful.
I’m learning to enjoy the green this time of year — all the foliage in its diversity of texture and form. From the thin, feathery blades of bunchgrasses fingering through beds and waving in even the slightest breeze, to the mounding clumps of Richardson’s alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii) and aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium), to the almost lacy foliage of purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea), the garden is richer than we know.
I’m learning to enjoy the green this time of year — all the foliage in its diversity of texture and form. From the thin, feathery blades of bunchgrasses fingering through beds and waving in even the slightest breeze, to the mounding clumps of Richardson’s alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii) and aromatic aster (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium), to the almost lacy foliage of purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea), the garden is richer than we know.
Bring In a Little Early-Summer Color Where Needed
If your early-summer garden needs more flower color, you can find it in plants like golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea), native from the central U.S. to the East Coast; eastern beebalm (Monarda bradburiana), native to the southern and central U.S.; foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis), native in the eastern and southeastern U.S.; and white wild indigo (Baptisia alba), native from the central to the southeastern U.S. Gardeners in the West can consider adding naked buckwheat (Eriogonum spp.), Cleveland sage (Salvia clevelandii) or a native milkweed (Asclepias spp.).
I suggest planting in odd numbers (a common design rule inside and outside the home) and in larger groups than you think you need. Don’t settle for three plants, go for five. Thinking of adding a cluster of seven? Try 11 or 15 instead. This method will give you more flowers, more texture and also more insurance against inevitable plant losses. You can keep planting now — and straight on into fall — as you tweak or re-create your landscape.
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If your early-summer garden needs more flower color, you can find it in plants like golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea), native from the central U.S. to the East Coast; eastern beebalm (Monarda bradburiana), native to the southern and central U.S.; foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis), native in the eastern and southeastern U.S.; and white wild indigo (Baptisia alba), native from the central to the southeastern U.S. Gardeners in the West can consider adding naked buckwheat (Eriogonum spp.), Cleveland sage (Salvia clevelandii) or a native milkweed (Asclepias spp.).
I suggest planting in odd numbers (a common design rule inside and outside the home) and in larger groups than you think you need. Don’t settle for three plants, go for five. Thinking of adding a cluster of seven? Try 11 or 15 instead. This method will give you more flowers, more texture and also more insurance against inevitable plant losses. You can keep planting now — and straight on into fall — as you tweak or re-create your landscape.
Find a local landscape designer on Houzz
Purple prairie clover and black-eyed Susan
Celebrate the First Flowers of Early Summer
I’m watching the first buds of pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida) and purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) prepare to break open. For my garden in Nebraska, these two plants are what crack the dam in the garden. Purple poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata), wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), upright prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera) and many tickseed (Coreopsis spp.) species soon follow.
After that, it’s a high summer free-for-all, and I wonder what I ever got anxious for and why I didn’t take the time to enjoy the cool, pensive, quiet moment in late spring when the garden was becoming ready and the rains were still plentiful. We’re often in a rush to grow up or be somewhere else, and sometimes the garden can remind us that if we live more fully in the present, we’ll be better prepared for and accepting of what comes next.
How to Find the Right Native Plants for Your Yard
Celebrate the First Flowers of Early Summer
I’m watching the first buds of pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida) and purple prairie clover (Dalea purpurea) prepare to break open. For my garden in Nebraska, these two plants are what crack the dam in the garden. Purple poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata), wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), upright prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera) and many tickseed (Coreopsis spp.) species soon follow.
After that, it’s a high summer free-for-all, and I wonder what I ever got anxious for and why I didn’t take the time to enjoy the cool, pensive, quiet moment in late spring when the garden was becoming ready and the rains were still plentiful. We’re often in a rush to grow up or be somewhere else, and sometimes the garden can remind us that if we live more fully in the present, we’ll be better prepared for and accepting of what comes next.
How to Find the Right Native Plants for Your Yard
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Take Stock of the Budding Wildlife in the Leaves
As you watch early summer transition to high summer and note the first season’s flowers, stop to focus on what’s going on beneath the breaking buds — especially on the leaves, where there is a lot already occurring.
Many plant species have larvae munching away, helping to jump-start this year’s crop of pollinators and beneficial bugs: from butterfly and moth caterpillars to beneficial predators like ladybugs and lacewings. The lush green growth is home to that added dimension of a garden — the living creatures that turn plants into a thriving ecosystem for miles around.
Be sure to let them do their thing, keeping your hands off pesticides, trusting in the landscape’s ability to find balance and, in that way, teaching us balance as we move through each week and month on our way to a garden’s full bounty. The more lush and diverse your garden, the more life it can support and the more potential it will have to teach you lessons you never knew you needed. Yes, this will be the best summer ever.
More on Houzz
Attract Hummingbirds and Bees With These Beautiful Summer Flowers
Read more guides about gardening with native plants
Work with a drought-tolerant landscape pro near you
Shop for gardening tools
As you watch early summer transition to high summer and note the first season’s flowers, stop to focus on what’s going on beneath the breaking buds — especially on the leaves, where there is a lot already occurring.
Many plant species have larvae munching away, helping to jump-start this year’s crop of pollinators and beneficial bugs: from butterfly and moth caterpillars to beneficial predators like ladybugs and lacewings. The lush green growth is home to that added dimension of a garden — the living creatures that turn plants into a thriving ecosystem for miles around.
Be sure to let them do their thing, keeping your hands off pesticides, trusting in the landscape’s ability to find balance and, in that way, teaching us balance as we move through each week and month on our way to a garden’s full bounty. The more lush and diverse your garden, the more life it can support and the more potential it will have to teach you lessons you never knew you needed. Yes, this will be the best summer ever.
More on Houzz
Attract Hummingbirds and Bees With These Beautiful Summer Flowers
Read more guides about gardening with native plants
Work with a drought-tolerant landscape pro near you
Shop for gardening tools
Shop for Gardening Tools
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Spring is marked by release and joy, as nature seemingly renews itself and excites us with a bounty of life we’d almost forgotten about in the winter months. Summer is awash in a cacophony of texture, color, scents and sounds, when the garden takes on an extra dimension, with all manner of wildlife coming and going. Finally, autumn is the spectacular finale, when everything seems to give what it had in reserve to tide us over until the next growing season.
For many of us, late May to mid-June and late August to early September are transition zones — chapter breaks or places to catch our breath. Certainly those moments are budding crescendos when we can find out something more about ourselves, the plants and the wildlife that mingle in the designed landscape. What’s a garden for but to bridge lives and voices, seasons and years, lifetimes and dreams? This summer may be the best ever.