July is the month where we realize that suddenly the summer is half over. How did that happen? Weren’t we just enjoying the lovely Memorial Day three-day weekend? It goes so fast. And the gardens seem to change suddenly, too. You leave for the weekend or a week and BAM… weeds, dried brown leaves, sagging stems, and squash bugs!! This is the time of the gardening season when the going gets tough, and the tough get weeding, and watering, and fertilizing, and clipping… July is the month that asks, “How bad do you want it?” “Do you REALLY want to garden?” So, for those of us that say, “Yeah…. bring it on,” let’s take a look at the Rhea gardens this month. First, the good news: Lillies!
Thanks to my aunt Caroline, we have a beautiful variety of lilies. Different colors, shapes, multiple layers of petals…. it’s amazing!
Also in the east side garden, we have some brilliant yellow black-eyed Susans. These originally came from my mom’s garden. We’ll collect seeds off these in the fall and spread the beauty.
Finally, this is some more Butterfly Weed, grown from seed this year. It’s doing really well–just about ready to bloom! So proud! Hoping to attract Monarchs, so we’re looking to add all sorts of milkweed to the gardens.
Baby Butterfly Weed
Well, that about wraps up July. Half-way through the summer… where does the time (thyme?) go? 🙂
June is the month for lilies, butterfly gardens, herbs, and veggies. This is when all the planning and dreaming of winter comes to a head, followed by the inevitable list of all the things we’re going to do differently next year. That’s the great thing about gardening… it’s never the same two years in a row… sometimes on purpose! So, let’s get started. We’ll be concentrating on the backyard for this tour. First stop is the herb garden. I love having the herbs surrounding the back deck. It’s handy for picking when you need a little something extra for the dinner meal; or, if you’re like me and often let your herbs bolt and flower (not always recommended), they make lovely bouquets for the table. And, if you happen to be sitting on the deck when your husband is watering the gardens, the smell is absolutely heavenly!
My all-thyme favorite!Oregano, mint, and a few lilliesOregano, French lavender, and a HUGE catnip mintEnglish lavender
Then, moving away from the deck and taking a detour to the left, we come to the east side garden. Here we find everything a monarch or swallowtail or a few of their friends would want:
Butterfly weedButterfly bushes (and lillies)
In the back corner of the yard, we have an interesting ivy-covered relic from the past… a concrete wall that was part of a railway bridge many years ago. Now, it’s just a nice place for English ivy to grow. There’s also coral bells, bleeding hearts, lemon balm, a pot of impatiens, and Stick and Straw…two of our three concrete pigs. Brick, you may remember, is in the front yard.
Lemon balm next to the bleeding hearts (and Straw & Stick)
And finally, turning to the west, we see the veggie garden boxes. For some reason, this year is the Year of the Tomatillo. I mean, really… you can’t see much else here except tomatillos. Oh, wait… maybe I see a bean in the back there….
Now this is a very cool thing. We’ve been adding native plants to the back yard each year. Last year, we bough a compass plant. It gets its name… I’m not kidding…from the fact that the leaves tend to orient themselves north-south. So, you can theoretically find your way around by paying close attention to the compass plant leaves. I’m happy to say that it seems to be true. Here’s ours:
Compass plant surrounded by cilantro
And lo and behold… the leaves do, in general, point north-south. And, because one can’t have too much cilantro, we plant it everywhere.
The last stop on the veggie tour is our Swiss chard. Interesting, isn’t it, that many of our plants have nationalistic names… Swiss chard, French lavender, English lavender… love it. Oh, and next to the Swiss chard… more tomatillos.
Garden & Sky 