Scenes from the Summer Garden | 1

I had goals this summer to write regularly about the garden instead of letting my photos languish in their folders on my computer without processing them. Instead those goals came and went and I only ever processed photos in large batches and then never made the time to write about the garden. The result is that there are far too many photos and things to share about the garden for one blog post so I’ve drafted up several posts to share the summer garden from July through the first of September. The last time I shared a post specifically on the garden as a whole was The June Garden. Obviously, a lot grew from July through August.

Fig season, the first-ish to second week of July, came and went with only a handful of figs picked for humans. The rest were foraged by birds and squirrels because I could never remember to go out and pick them. And when I did I would find the figs in various states of not quite ripe and then the next time I looked they would be picked on by said animals. Such is life with the fig tree.

The Aristilochia fimbriata flourished in its location in the side-yard garden this year, rambling along the ground and up a little bit of the chain link fence. Because we had the pipevine caterpillars this year I made sure to get seed and start new plants this year. Because the plant tolerates a shadier locale in the garden I will definitely be trying to find a few more places for it to reside in the garden next year.

Almond verbena, Aloysia virgata. This plant needs to be heavily trimmed back and honestly, I wouldn’t mind it being removed from its current location or just buying a new plant to put elsewhere in the yard. When we bought it I think we thought it would be more bushy than it became. At is full glory it was a small tree and then one of the colder winters caused it to die back about halfway and from there it has sent out side shoots and odd looking branches. It’s not very pretty and frankly, it is annoying to walk by.

The pink bananas on the side yard garden, taken here July 9th, hadn’t quite filled out yet. Now they are dense and create quite a bit of shade over there. I’m thinking of relocating the Salvia guaranitica ‘Argentina Skies’ to another location in the garden. I enjoy them being there, especially when they cascade into the walk way but Chris doesn’t and cuts it back more frequently than I would like. Plus, it just seems too tight in this area now, so maybe give the bananas more room and move the salvia to a brighter location would be a good move.

American beautyberry, Callicarpa americana

The deer have been chowing on my blackberry lilies more this year so they have not bloomed to the abundance they typically do.

There have been far too many milkweed beetle progeny about the garden this year!

Next year: more Salvia coccinea in the beds.

July wild.

At the beginning of the year I had thought I’d try to take weekly photos of the garden from this angle to do a time lapse at the end of the year but instead I fell off the photo wagon back in April at least. I’m lucky if I remember once a month. You can see this angle after the hard freeze in January here

I know this is slightly out of focus and not on the flower itself but I still love the photo. It’s Salvia azurea and I hope it reseeds itself well in the garden next year. I’ll likely buy more seeds, too, because the blooms are so lovely.