Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - August 2010

August in the gardens is Phlox, Agastache, Golden Glow, Gloriosas, Coneflowers, Cosmos, Cleome, Dahlias, Zinnias......

and so much more!
Wonderful color everywhere!

Now that the daylilies are finished in the Lily Garden, that large clump of Agastache foeniculum/Anise Hyssop is the main attraction. It's been blooming for weeks!

In the Lower Rock Garden there's plenty of Gloriosa Daisies/rudbeckia hirta and other lovelies.

Coneflowers are still blooming happily with Phlox and Gloriosas.

The Phlox in the Driveway Garden have had a spectacular season, with blooms more abundant than I've ever seen. I took lots of photos and will have to do a "look back" post to show you some of them. Is it just me, or does summer get busier every year? I just can't seem to find time to blog lately. 

The Golden Glow/Rudbeckia laciniata "Hortensia" (aka Cut-leaf coneflower, Outhouse plant) falls all over the place in gay abandon and still manages to look beautiful. Hubby's rustic fences are meant to keep it upright, but it creeps out beyond them and I haven't found time to dig it up and put it back where I want it.

The red shed makes a perfect background.

Hannah and the other cats think it's their own personal jungle.

Let's wander down to the Lily Garden where there are some pretty annuals blooming.

Cleome in glorious shades of pink.

Aka Spider Flower

Coreopsis Ruby Frost was a gift from Terra Nova nurseries for helping to name the new plant through a Birds and Blooms magazine competition. What a lovely surprise when 4 plants arrived in the mail! Isn't it beautiful?

I love this Dark Opal Basil paired with Zinnias, and it smells wonderful whenever I'm working near it and brush against it.

I left this one Gloriosa seedling where it planted itself and am very happy that it's turned out to be a double with some rusty tones in it. I haven't seen many of them this year. They're mostly the more common school bus yellow.

I'm so pleased with my beautiful Verbena bonariensis growing in the Lower Rock Garden!
Thank you, dear Barbara of Abenteuer Garten!
A few of them self-seeded from last year but most of these were started from seed indoors in the late winter.

It also pairs well with Zinnias.

We are lucky to have a small, local nursery owned by friends, and it's a real treasure chest of new plants to try. I was excited to find, among other things, 2 salvias that I haven't seen in these parts before. This one is Salvia greggii "Desert Blaze"/Variegated Autumn Sage.

And this one is Salvia coccinea "Coral Nymph"/Hummingbird or Texas Sage.

Bright orange nasturtiums are blooming with calendulas and marigolds at the bottom of the Rock Garden.

Speaking of bright orange, the lovely Oriental Tigerlily has been blooming up near the butterfly bush in the Driveway Garden for weeks!

Windowboxes are overflowing with petunias! This one has "Pink Morn" paired with Scaevola/Fan Flower, Alyssum, Vinca and an Ivy Geranium.

Soft mounds of Cosmos glow in the morning sun outside the back door.

Across the driveway, Dahlia "Park Princess" is pretty in the Pink Garden.

Daylily "Summer Wine" is the only one still producing blooms. There aren't many buds left now, but it's been blooming for more than a month. This is a late July photo because I forgot to take a current one.

August is the month for my overwintered geraniums to really come into their own. The Ivies are blooming like crazy and looking glorious.

We've had some cooler weather and a couple of good rains lately. One recent misty morn I caught the geraniums sparkling with jeweled drops after an overnight rain.
This is "Belladonna".

and  "Chirocco".

Vancouver Centennial Geranium is beautiful once again with Sweet Potato Vine "Blackie" and Calibrachoa "MiniFamous Tangerine".

There are many more blooms - too many to mention, so this will have to do for now. Thanks for visiting and happy Bloom Day to you!


I hope you'll manage to find the time to visit Carol of May Dreams Gardens and have a look at what's blooming in other gardens all over the globe on this August Bloom Day.

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Front Yard Bed

I set out telling myself to just post the Surprise Lily for Jean's Bloomin' Tuesday, but seeing there were still some other nice blooms, I checked, and saw it had been a month since I'd done an update on the front yard bed.  Then, I saw I had gotten sidetracked the other day, and not gone all the way around, so a few photos are from Saturday, and the sunniest ones are from a few minutes ago.

You can see in this photo, part of the round bed where I used to have mostly orange and red flowers.  Some of these were already there.

This part of the bed has been blooming for a number of weeks.  What troopers!

The butterfly bush behind Heidi is finally starting to bloom, later than it did last year.

The surprise lilies have nice sized blooms.

The delphiniums are on the left.  The cleomes are blooming at different heights.  I forgot they do that.

Love lies bleeding is up and over the leaf burning cage.

The kiss me over the garden gate plants are getting taller.

Here's a view I always include in my front garden posts.  Our grandson is such a sweetie!  We'll go somewhere where there are flowers, and he'll say, "Flower garden!"

The little delphinium is filling out.

Here are the surprise lilies from the other side.  I'm loving the pink lisianthus.  The petite monarda is cut back and looking OK.

I think this foxglove had been blooming the longest of most flowers this season.

When I went back out to get more photos, I was tickled to see the reblooming iris has a new flower stalk.

I've been pulling out Octopus bellflowers to prevent them from spreading too far.

I divided the mums so they wouldn't overpower the September charm anemone like they almost did last year, and now, the anemone is larger than the mum.

I guess it doesn't know it's not September yet.

The area I put the fake flowers in has filled in better.

I thought the clematis was finished for the season, but it has some new blooms.

We've made it around the bed.  I'm sorry I didn't remember some of the names of the plants.  I would have looked them up from different posts, but I need to get some other things done around here.  I did put a link to other front yard posts in the first paragraph.

Well, I'm planning on using more self control and posting fewer photos for awhile.  In a couple weeks, I have an appointment with a dentist who specializes in TMJD, and is a professor at our university.  I didn't realize there was a professor's clinic, but I'm glad, because it looks like it won't be as expensive as the place my dentist referred me to.  I also have a book to read to help me function better in my body.  It talks about replacing our bad habits with good ones, and one of those has to do with posture. 

I hope you are having a good start to the week.

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