Right Plant, Right Place: Tips for Growing Great Mid-Summer Flowers

Posted on Wednesday, July 8, 2020 · Leave a Comment 

It is mid-summer now, and my garden is full of gorgeous flowers, some finishing up their display, others just beginning. Here are some I love, and what I do to make them happy.

 

This double poppy comes back every year in my vegetable garden

The first flowers I see when I walk out my front door are poppies. Annual poppies ( Papaver somniferum). I didn’t plant most of them, or not this year. Each year I let them bloom and drop seeds after they’re done. They reward me with dozens of blossoms the following year. Sometimes I pick the pods and save to sprinkle seeds on the snow, an easy way to plant them in the dead of winter.

 

My poppies are in full sun and soil that is not particularly rich. I like these poppies because they ask nothing of me and each year the palette is a little different as they hybridize, offering some new colors and sizes. I have a nice deep red double annual poppy that blooms every year in one row of my vegetable garden. This year it is with the tomatoes.

 

Pink mallow is an enthusiastic plant showing up everywhere

Another favorite of mine is pink mallow (Malva alcea). This is a big, often floppy perennial with lots of pink blossoms that resemble those of a hollyhock. In my garden it pops up anywhere and everywhere. I have to treat it a bit like a weed to keep it in control. It does best in full sun and rich soil that stays lightly moist.

 

Pink mallow has a tap root and does not transplant easily, unless you do so when small. I often stake mine to keep them upright – it can grow to be 2- to 5-feet tall. Not often seen in garden centers, get a seedling from a fellow gardener, and let it go to seed so you’ll get more plants.

 

Another flower that moves around the garden, appearing by

Feverfew volunteers to grow everywhere

whim, is feverfew ( Tanacetum parthenium). Feverfew has white daisy-like flowers with a yellow center, each blossom just three-quarters of an inch across, but appearing in vast numbers. It is a short-lived perennial that sows seeds freely, so if you don’t want more plants, cut off the flowers before the seeds are dropped.

 

Feverfew will grow in average soil, but prefers moist, rich soil. It’s blooming for me now, and will continue for the rest of the summer, or nearly. The flowers do well in a vase.

 

My beebalm ( Monarda didyma ) is just coming into full bloom now, and is deliciously fragrant. It is in the mint family, with a square stem that is relatively fragile. But they make great cut flowers, in part, because of their fragrance. Bees love them (hence the name), but hummingbirds do, too. Mine grow to 5 feet tall.

 

Bee balm does best in part sun and rich, moist soil

Many books claim beebalm is a full sun plant, but I disagree. It does best in morning sun or partial shade in rich, moist soil. It goes by quickly in hot, dry areas. The best blossom colors are red and purple, though cultivars in white and bluish are sold. Recently short varieties have appeared in the marketplace, but I have not found that they are very hardy. Beebalm spreads by root, but pulls easily if it gets too rambunctious.  

 

Daylilies ( Hemerocallis spp.) are in bloom now, too. The common orange daylily is the friend of anyone who thinks they can’t grow flowers. You cannot kill a common orange daylily. I have dug them out, placed them on the lawn without any soil preparation, and they have thrived where placed.

 

Each blossom of a daylily blooms for just one day, but each scape, or flower stalk, has several buds that bloom in succession. The buds will open in a vase, too, so don’t be afraid to use them in flower arrangements. Unlike true lilies, these beauties are not eaten by lily-leaf beetles. They come in many colors from deep red to light yellow. I have tiny daylilies, and one variety that blooms on scapes as tall as me.

 

Astrantia does well in part sun

Great masterwort is an awkward name, so I prefer the scientific epithet, Astrantia major. This is a medium-height flower in the carrot family, along with Queen Anne’s lace, a wildflower or weed I love, too. The flowers range from white to purple-white, and bloom in great profusion. It is good cut flower, too. Each blossom is just an inch across, and resembles scabiosa.

 

Astrantia does well in part shade, but will grow in full sun if adequate moisture is present. The foliage is attractive even when the plant is not in bloom, and it is very well behaved – it stays as a nice clump and does not take over the garden.

 

I love knautia ( Knautia macedonia) both for the smallish (3/4-inch) purple-red, domed blossoms, and for its willingness to keep on blooming from now until fall. Most perennials have much shorter bloom periods, but knautia is a real trooper.

 

It has thin stems and delicate leaves, so is hard to display in a vase, but it is worth mixing with daisies or something else that will hold the blossoms up in a vase. I grow it in full sun with average soil, and it does well – and will occasionally provide volunteers from seed.

 

Each garden has its own winners and losers. Good gardeners try a lot of plants to find those that do best for them. So go buy some or trade with a friend.  

 

Henry is a long time UNH Extension Service Master Gardener and the author of 4 gardening books. He is available for consultations near his home in Cornish Flat, NH.

Filed under Article · Tagged with astrantia, bee balm, feverfew, knautia macedonia, perennial poppies

July Beauties in the Flower Garden

Prairie Sun

Every day in the warm months I take time to wander through my garden, often with camera in hand. I am always greeted by flowers in bloom that make my heart sing. Here are some blooming for me now, including a few you might not grow – or not yet. I include the Latin names of plants, as common names vary from region to region.

Astrantia does fine in partial shade

Great masterwort (Astrantia major) comes with flowers ranging in color from white to lavender to reddish-purple. Its flowers are dome-shaped umbels (shaped like the stays of an umbrella). In ordinary garden soil it needs some shade, but in moist soil it will thrive in full sun. The leaves are tidy and stay in a nice clump a foot tall and 18 inches across; blossom stems can reach 2-feet tall, It is a good cut flower.  

I have planted 4 species of milkweed to attract pollinators and to support our monarch butterflies. The monarchs (or their mimic, the Viceroy) were out recently and swooping around as singles or in pairs, perhaps in a mating dance. The swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is in full bloom now and the 5 plants I planted last year make a handsome 4-foot tall hedge topped with white flowers. I have it in full sun with moist soil, though it will thrive in ordinary garden soil.

Clematis jackmanni

On the front of the house I have a vine climbing up 10 feet or more on wires I installed for it. Currently it has 50 or 60 deep purple blossoms, each three to five inches across. It is a clematis, a species called Clematis jackmanii. Like all clematis, it does best with plenty of hot sun, but needs shade on its roots. I have tall perennials growing in front of it to accomplish that. Jackman’s clematis, as Latin-name-adverse gardeners call it, is one of the hardiest of all – easily surviving winter temperatures to 40 below.

You probably have grown that lovely purple-pink biennial foxglove that blooms in its second year, and then dies (Digitalis purpurea). I love it and spread the seeds after it blooms to get a few new babies the following spring. Mine are just now coming into bloom. But there are also a couple of perennial foxgloves, including a nice yellow one that is just finishing up its bloom period for me now. It is simply called yellow foxglove or Digitalis grandiflora. It does well in partial shade in rich, well-drained soil. It may re-bloom if you cut off the flower stalks after blooming. On the other hand, if you leave the stalks and seed pods, you may get more plants next spring. The other perennial foxglove I have grown is the small yellow foxglove, D. lutea, though it has been less long-lived than the larger one.

Knautia

One of my favorite perennials is called knautia (Knautia macedonica). I love the wine-red, domed, one-inch flowers on thin stems that seem to float above its foliage, or the foliage of nearby plants. It drops seeds and volunteers show up, which is a good thing as it is not as long-lived plant. It does fine in full sun and ordinary soil. It is not common in garden centers, but if you see it, buy it!

Everyone has some black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia spp.), either those you planted or as wildflowers along your fence line. They are tough and cheery. But I also have a named variety that is my favorite, ‘Prairie Sun’. Prairie Sun is not black-eyed, but green-eyed. It blooms prolifically from now until mid-October or even later. Although it is sold as a perennial, my experience is that it usually dies during the winter, though some plants do last 2 or 3 years. I grow it in full sun, a hot and dry location. It is hard to find as a plant, so you may want to start some from seed next spring.

Another great plant that I have only had in recent years is betony (Stachys monieri ‘Humelo’). Unlike the well-known lamb’s ears (Stachys byzantina), this does not flop, and the flowers are fabulous. The flowers are a pinkish-purple in a bottlebrush arrangement on nice stiff stems – perfect for cutting and using indoors in a vase. The leaves are a deep green and look good all summer in a nice tidy clump. Flower stalks stand up about 18 inches tall.

Annual poppies are blooming right now, and all of mine are self-seeded. I have planted them on either side of my brick front walkway in the past, but this year I just let them show up. I have the common orange one, the yellow California poppy, a double red one and one called ‘Ladybird’ that I bought as a six pack last year. Ladybird is a light purple with some large dark purple spots inside.

Double poppy

A few poppies seeded themselves between bricks in the walkway and bloomed! Save seeds this year if you have them, and sprinkle them on loose soil in the fall after cleanup, or in the spring. I have even sprinkled them on the snow in winter and gotten them to grow in spring.

Betony is a good cut flower

And speaking of sowing annuals, I got a great mix of wildflowers from Renee’s Garden Seeds this year. I made a bed perhaps 5 feet by 2 feet and sprinkled the entire seed packet on the soil in the spring, just lightly covering the seeds and patting down. I now have a mass of color, mainly annual blue campanula and yellow calendula, with a few annual poppies. I like broadcasting annual flowers, letting them pop up in a random pattern, and have done it with zinnias and cosmos to great success. And if I save seeds, I can make my own mix.

Henry is a UNH Master Gardener and the author of 4 gardening books.

Copyright © 2014 Henry Homeyer

Gardenmaus a wordpress theme by the Little Thumb Group