A Tour Around My Garden

The summer is moving a long quickly, as summers always seem to do, and before you know it, the days will grow colder, a new school year will begin, the leaves on the trees will put on their fall display and the birds will migrate to warmer regions (wish I could do that too).

But.

For now, it’s still warm out and the garden is happily blooming away. Below are some photos of what’s growing on around here:


My Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’ is still growing strong. What an amazing plant.




The coneflowers are blooming happily.



There are critters on top of them...


And there are critters between them – like Nacho, our cat.



My Coreopsis grandiflora ‘Sunfire’ plants haven’t stopped blooming since I brought them home.



The Rudbeckias are the most wonderful plants in my garden. Not only do they produce the most spectacular blooms, they’re also easy to grow.

There is Rudbeckia hirta ‘Cherry Brandy’:



Rudbeckia hirta ‘Marmalade’:



And Rudbeckia hirta ‘Sonora’:




A couple of liliums have decided it’s time to put on a show. (They both look very similar)

There is Lilium ‘Royal Sunset’:


And Lilium ‘Stargazer’:



My Heliopsis helianthoides loraine ‘Sunshine’, which wasn’t planted long ago and which I haven’t written about yet, has decided to let me know how happy it is in its new home by presenting me with pretty flowers. (The variegated leaves alone on this plant are enough to want it in the garden.)



Gaura lindheimeri ‘Pink Cloud’ grew like a weed and looks spectacular. I hope it survives the winter and returns next spring.



Eupatorium phantom (Dwarf Joe Pye Weed) is a recent addition that is happily blooming away in its new home. The pretty flowers are a magnet for butterflies.



The flowers on my Helenium rotgold (Red & Gold) plants are starting to open. They are even prettier than I imagined.



I adore my Houttuynia cordata ‘Chameleon’ plant. It requires little or no care and always looks spectacular.



I didn’t expect my Polemonium boreale ‘Heavenly habit’, which I cut back awhile ago, to grow back so quickly and present me with pretty flowers. But it did, so there you go.



My garden's 'giants' (aka sunflowers) are almost done growing. I expect to see some gorgeous blooms soon. Can’t wait! (And neither can the squirrels...sigh...)


(Incidentally, these are not the sunflowers I bought weeks ago in pots; those did terribly. These are a result of the sunflower seeds I planted after I realized my original batch failed. I will never buy sunflowers from garden centers again. EVER. I will just plant seeds every year.)


And finally, a few photos of how some of the flower beds are coming along.

Things are growing quickly under the kitchen windows. Must be all the sun the plants are basking in:


It’ll probably be another year or two before the plants in front of our home are fully grown and the area is full. But you have to start somewhere:


The right side of the house will also take some time to become established, but the young plants are growing along quite nicely.


The center of the yard is my favourite spot in the garden. It's always full of colour.




The flower bed on the right side of my backyard is far from being filled but I’ve managed to add some pretty plants in it. They’re all so young that they hardly make a dent. But they’ll grow.


I’ve added some gorgeous plants to the circle on the left side of the backyard, a newly-carved area that I’ve never mentioned. My hibiscus and both my Heliopsis plants are growing in there, amongst other things. I’ve added a couple of annuals, like the two marigolds you see in the photo, to fill in some of the gaps. There's still space for three or four more perennials, but I won't get to that until next spring when the garden centers stock up again. It'll be something to look forward to.



Well, that’s it for today’s botanical tour. Thanks for stopping by. And hey, what’s growing on in your garden?