Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - August 2010

Welcome to Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day for August 2010.

I wrote in 2009 that August is what separates the real gardeners from the wanna-be gardeners. It’s hot and dry and who wants to be out there now?

In comparison to this year, August 2009 was actually quite pleasant but not as pleasant as August 2008 and August 2007. I hope we return to some Augusts like that next year becuase this August is not so nice.

This August the garden reminds me of the resilience of plants, how little help they actually need from us gardeners, how much they can endure and still bloom.

Above is that common as dirt daylily, ‘Stella D’Oro’. One afternoon back in the spring, I grabbed a shovel and attempt to evict all of these "stellas" from my garden.  Not so easy! A few roots remained, clung to the soil, pushed up shoots, and bloomed. And they bloomed all summer long.

Where lesser plants have withered in the heat, these keep going.

So I’m going to let them stay. But just a few of them!

Elsewhere in the garden, a clematis, variety unknown/forgotten, is blooming.

The freshness of this bloom with drops of water clinging to it is deceiving. Few flowers are fresh or damp in my garden this month, except those like this clematis that I’ve been watering daily.

It’s hard to see in this picture, but this clematis is sprawling across a long container holding some 4” pots of trial plants that I’m planning to plant this fall. What makes this clematis so remarkable, so resilient, so worthy of this much attention?

In late June when the crew came to install the new patio, they told me they didn’t think they could dig this up where it was, so I told them to cut it back and shrugged it off as a loss for the greater gain of a newly designed garden. So they cut it back, and I thought no more about it until one day it was back, covering these other plants, and now it's blooming.

Out in the vegetable garden, the okra seems oblivious to the heat and can be counted on to have blooms each day.

As long as I keeping cutting off those pods, I think it will keep blooming until it is knocked back by frost.

What else is blooming in my garden? What else has the resilience to stand this heat and dryness?

Sunflowers.

This is ‘Autumn Beauty’ from Botanical Interests seeds. It's tall.

Zinnias.

These are several different varieties from several different sources. The bees and butterflies both love them.

Knockout roses, ‘Radsunny’.

They are a nice subtle buttery yellow, much nicer than that garish yellow gold of the "stella" daylilies.

Elsewere I am also enjoying, mostly from inside the house looking out into the garden, the usual marigolds, coneflowers, phlox, black-eyed susans, hostas, coreopsis, salvia, golden rod, yarrow, and hydrangeas.

They all have the resilience to bloom in hot, dry August in my garden.

What’s blooming in your garden?

We would love to have you join in for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. It’s easy to participate and all are invited!

Just post on your blog about what is blooming in your garden on the 15th of the month and put your name and the url to your post on the Mr. Linky widget below. Then leave a comment to tell us what you have waiting for us to see so we can pay you a virtual visit!

“We can have flowers nearly every month of the year.” ~ Elizabeth Lawrence

(My apologies. Mr. Linky was down for maintenance so for this month I switched to "Simply Linked" to give it a try. Let me know how you like it!)



Some of you are not seeing your link on Simply Linked. Here's Mr. Linky, back in businss. Someday, I might combine these two lists. Anyway, link on whichever one you'd like and sorry for the confusion and mess!