What a wonderful year for Roses we had. There are a few still hanging on. This first one is a David Austin variety named ‘Heritage’. It has slowed down but I wanted to post it since I have so enjoyed it this year. I went into the rose garden on Friday just to see what was blooming and a couple of the varieties were still going strong.
‘Iceberg’: strong white bloomer.
I featured this on another post. I can’t say enough well about this new rose. I highly recommend it. It had the most flowers of any rose in the garden right now.
‘Love and Peace’: This one combines two of my favorite roses. Still had a half dozen nice flowers as of this week.
An oldie but it is still blooming very well in the heat.
Numerous shrub roses. This one is ‘Seafoam’. You can see it has started to mingle with my Korean Silver Fir. Very nice white and loaded with blooms.
This next one is a new plant for me, Monarda citriodora. It seems to have numerous synonyms including Lemon Bee Balm and Lemon Mint. It grew in a wildflower mix so I am not sure if it is an annual, perennial or biennial. Only time will tell that though I will encourage it to reseed. I think I like it better than the regular Bee Balm I have been growing. Although this year is the first year in many that the perennial species has not gotten Powdery Mildew.
My Gaillardia Oranges & Lemons has been blooming steady for weeks now. It is on the downward curve right now but still had flowers. It is the longest blooming of the Blanket Flowers that I have seen. Wonderful plant and I have been enjoying the various shades that the flowers come out on the individual plants. I want to see what it does after I cut it back.
There are hundreds of Coneflowers out now. I have been planting the various new ones as well as growing a lot from seed. Here is my favorite white. Echinacea purpurea 'White Lustre' has done well and I have enjoyed the contrast with the pink Coneflowers.
I love Zinnias but had given up growing them because of the numerous cultural problems. This is the second year that I have grown ‘Dreamland Red’ and have been pleased with its disease resistance and blooming capabilities. Red flowers seem to be really hard to capture with my digital equipment so I have taken to slightly underexposing them and then running them through Photoshop. I don’t have it down quite yet but this method seems to help. I wanted to share this with the Zinnia lovers out there as a good cultivar that doesn’t get too tall (10 inches) and is a prolific bloomer.
I haven’t quite seemed to figure out how to grow consistent Hydrangea macrophylla in Connecticut. This is a planting of about 18 plants that ring a driveway. I added the Boxwood for some structure during the winter. This planting blooms well maybe 6 out of 10 years and this year is an ‘on’ year. Rather than trying to turn them all blue I sprinkled some Aluminum sulfate randomly through the plants. It gives an interesting range of colors. My thoughts are that it is a combination of having a not too cold winter and not pruning the dead stalks off until well after bud break is the key to success.
