Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: July

July 15th, 2007 by Kathy Purdy · 17 Comments

Larkspur ‘Sublime Dark Blue’

Ah, yes, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day has rolled around again. I always seem to have trouble finishing these bloom day posts on time. Even though I take photos for days ahead, the actual middle day of the month always seems to be a busy time. I should probably make it short and sweet, but making anything with words short seems to be difficult for me. I wanted to start off with larkspur, just to astonish all those Austin bloggers who seem to think it is a spring blooming plant. Are you kidding? Mine hadn’t even germinated for the April bloom report. Johnny’s is one of the few seed merchants that sells larkspur by color, and I always get this dark blue-purple to sow in the peony bed along with peony-flowered poppies, so there will be some color here after the peonies are done blooming. That’s the plan, anyway. Germination of both poppy and larkspur is always sporadic, and the poppies often look spindly. Maybe the peonies are just too much competition. Or those dratted Canada thistles.

The biggest, bestest feverfew I ever grew

Feverfew always sows itself moderately around my garden, and the plants function like fillers in a bouquet, poking out between perennials with a spray of miniature daisies. I don’t know what this particular feverfew found so much to its liking, but boy, is it one happy plant. I included the child’s wagon to give you an idea of its scale. Feverfew has seeded itself there before, but it’s never been so spectacular.

Also Blooming Now

Daylilies–this is the first week they’ve been blooming, except for Stella
My one and only Asiatic lily
various mallows
Heliopsis ‘Summer Sun’ (or descendants thereof)
Roving bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides)
Unidentified thalictrum
lady’s mantle
unidentified single rose
hollyhocks
cephalaria
one bright red zonal geranium that someone gave my neighbor and she didn’t want it
flowering tobacco
two kinds of foxglove
‘Concord Grape’ spiderwort
tall meadowrue
catmint
tunic flower

I have pictures of all of them, so please let me know if you are unfamiliar with something, and I will do a separate post on it. And always, stop by May Dreams Gardens for a list of everyone who joined in the fun.

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Categories: Miscellaneous

Keywords: bloom dates · feverfew · larkspur

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17 responses so far ↓

1 Carol // Jul 15, 2007 at 7:46 am

After reading through your list I realized I didn’t include lady’s mantle on my list, even though it has blooms on it here, too. I just never think of those as blooms for some reason.

And I see you listed your roving campanula, the one you wrote about in your piece featured in High Ground on page 88 of this month’s (August-September 2007) issue of Horticulture magazine. I figured you might not tell us all about your published work, but now that I’ve mentioned it in a comment, you should post about it!

Thanks for participating in Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day!

Carol at May Dreams Gardens
2 Pam Shorey // Jul 15, 2007 at 12:08 pm

Kathy, I just stopped by your site to say how happy I was to see a piece by you in Horticulture Magazine about rampant campanulas.

Nice job!

Funny, I am in my second summer of trying to create a garden on very little money, and when I saw your mention of a plant that spreads easily, thought”Ah! just the thing for me!”

But maybe, upon reading further, not…………

The plant you’re talking about isn’t the same as Canterbury Bells, is it?

Best regards,
3 Digital Flower // Jul 15, 2007 at 1:35 pm

That is a huge Feverfew! Good idea to include the wagon for scale.
4 Pam/Digging // Jul 15, 2007 at 2:38 pm

I love the photo of the meadowy-looking feverfew with the rustic wagon. Also enjoyed your “good, bad, and ugly” post.

And, what!, you have larkspur blooming in the middle of summer??!
5 Kathy Purdy // Jul 15, 2007 at 5:57 pm

Thank you for humoring me, Pam of Digging. I was trying hard to get some Texas gardener’s goat, and no one was rising to the bait. Most of my larkspur hasn’t started blooming yet, as a matter of fact.
6 Kathy Purdy // Jul 15, 2007 at 5:59 pm

Pam Shorey, fellow garden blog pioneer, thanks for stopping by. Canterbury bells is a biennial. Same genus, different species.
7 Kathy Purdy // Jul 15, 2007 at 6:02 pm

Digital Flower, if a professional gardener like you thinks it’s a huge feverfew, then it must be so. Wish I could claim it as skill, but no. I did try to make that area particularly well-draining for my typically clay soil, but that was so the lamb’s ears wouldn’t rot out. Which they did, anyway.
8 layanee // Jul 15, 2007 at 8:04 pm

Kathy: Let me leave my congrats also on your article in Horticulture! I enjoyed it immensely. Also, that feverfew is exceptional!
9 Bonnie // Jul 15, 2007 at 8:50 pm

The feverfew is gorgeous!

I would love to see what your Flowering Tobacco looks like. Sounds interesting.
10 Nicole // Jul 16, 2007 at 10:18 am

I like the larrkspur blue. Actually, I dont know most of the flowers on your list,an neither would many tropical gardeners!
11 Robin (Bumblebee) // Jul 16, 2007 at 4:26 pm

Tunic flower? You got me on that one.

I’m pleased that Pam pointed out your featured column in “High Ground” in Horticulture magazine. Good going! I feel like I know a celebrity!

–Robin (Bumblebee)
12 Marie Suzanne // Jul 17, 2007 at 11:11 am

I did not know about “GardenBloggerBlooms day” great idea!
I will make sure to submit my pictures.
Love your blog, great read! Sincerely Marie Suzanne
13 Kathy Purdy // Jul 17, 2007 at 3:42 pm

I will be talking more about flowering tobacco and tunic flower in upcoming posts. Any other requests?

Marie Suzanne, Carol started Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day and you can find more information about it there. Look in the comments of the post I linked to for all the gardeners who participated.
14 Digital Flower // Jul 17, 2007 at 4:12 pm

“Wish I could claim it as skill, but no.”

Sometimes good gardening is a happy accident.
15 Oops, make that three feverfews | Cold Climate Gardening // Jul 17, 2007 at 4:38 pm

[…] all the admirers of the huge feverfew in my last post, especially Digital Flower, Pam, Layanee, and Bonnie, it turns out it was a clump of three plants. The flowers were looking […]
16 M Sinclair Stevens (Texas) // Jul 21, 2007 at 11:59 pm

The larkspur in summer made my eyes pop, too. But I’m still catching up in my blog reading…that’s why this comment is so late.
17 Campanula rapunculoides, The Evil Twin | Cold Climate Gardening // Jul 26, 2007 at 8:58 pm

[…] you to all of those who mentioned that they read the essay. I subscribe to Horticulture myself, and, ironically, that issue never came. Oh, my editor sent me […]