Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - July 2023

 Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for July, 2023

While there are plenty of blooms to share, it's also that month when things start looking dry and depressing.  It's been hot, 90's day after day.  Today is supposed to be over 100°.  Here are some of the best blooms.

Daylilies of course!

Bonanza.  I started with two plants in 2014, and now have eight or more, and have sent some out of town!  That's one thing to love about daylilies, you get more.

I don't know what this is.  It's too pale to be Grape Magic, but that must be what it is.   It's similar to my pale Wayside Knight Royale, but this was here before I got that.

This is May May.  May May is a rebloomer, and for me a non-stop bloomer.  Once May May starts there will be flowers into fall.  Only the May May in the backyard though, in the front it doesn't do as well. 

A medley of daylilies.  Clockwise from the bright orange, which is Rocket City.  Then Stella d' Oro, which is blooming lemony yellow instead of gold.  Then American Revolution, which is actually more brick colored than this photo makes it look.  Then, lemon yellow flowers on tall, thin plants grown from seed I gathered at a library a few years ago. 

Ruffled Apricot, my giant of the daylilies.  

It makes Bonanza and American Revolution look like miniatures!  This one was paler than the bloom above.    Sometimes the difference is only the time of day I take the photos and how my camera (phone) show them.

So far this year, my favorite, Scottish Fantasy. 

Pale Wayside Knight Royale. 

Lullaby Baby

That's enough of the daylilies! 

Well, maybe a couple more you've seen before.

Rocket City

Chesapeake Crablegs 

Penny from next door in the daylilies. My yard has hiding places and cool catnapping spots her own yard doesn't have.  Sometimes Mickey doesn't even see her in the backyard!  

I like how these rudbeckia are fading in the centers as they age.  These might be Autumn Forest. 

Left: plain ol' purple coneflower with plain ol' black-eyed Susans in the background.  Right: blanketflower and wild bergamot. 

 Spintop Orange Halo blanketflower.

The first gladiola.

Blazing Star 

Three color yarrow in the Toss Garden.  Moonshine, Summer Berries, and white. These aren't from tossed seeds (as are many of the Toss Garden plants), I transplanted them here.  If anything can give escaped lemon balm a run for its money, it's yarrow, especially Summer Berries!  I also stuck in some woolly apple mint and a few other mints. 

Speaking of woolly apple mint... here it is on the top right. Below it is lemony catmint.  No, it's not much to look at, but the pollinators love it.  I don't think it smells lemony at all, I'd say it stinks!  On left is an honorary bloom, the Turkish sage.  The yellow flowers have fallen off,  and I think the seeds are equally attractive.  They are drying and falling apart, and the edges are spiny sharp!  I wonder if I cut the stalk they would dry and hold together?  They'd make really pretty arrangements for fall.    I think I'll try one and see.  I waited four years for the flowers (from seed), and I don't know if they will come back and bloom next year. 

You know, I think that's enough.  I have bronze fennel, white borage and blue borage, narrowleaf milkweed, Phenomenal lavender, Pink Panther catmint (more pale lilac than pink)...  little stuff.  

I let a lot of artichokes stay for the pollinators.

Oh, one last thing is the back bed where I had all the corn poppies, which are just finishing up.  The bed has moved on to love-in-a-mist.  What I like about it, as well as its relative black cumin, is the different shapes and petal numbers on one plant. 

Have a nice Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day!  See you in August, if not before.