6 on Saturday – 05JUL2025 – Summer Garden

Chris Mousseau

June was really busy and although I was out taking pictures many mornings they mostly never made it to the processing stage. So there’s a bit of catch up today although I will start with something brand new to my garden – this eye-catching butterfly bush a friend gifted me last Sunday. I know these are supposed to be invasive here and are now on Do Not Plant lists all over North America, but this one, ‘Blue Chip Jr,’ is supposed to be sterile, producing only a few seeds, and should not spread. It’s also supposed to stay very short, topping out at less than a metre high and wide. The root ball wasn’t very well developed when I took it out of its pot so I just hope it can settle in enough to survive the winter. I also hope it will succeed in attracting butterflies, which have so far been in short supply this year.

Buddleia ‘Blue Chip Jr.’

Two roses in bloom – the yellow ‘Friesia’ (aka R. Sunsprite) and the deep red ‘Crimson Bouquet.’ Both are slightly and delightfully fragrant and quite resistant to the usual leaf problems.

Blanket flower has become a welcome staple along the gravelly edges of the driveway, both as returning clumps and self seeded individual plants. They started to bloom a few weeks ago and will continue until frost if I keep up with dead-heading. No fancy soil or fertilizer for these beauties – they thrive in dry gravel. There are several species of Gaillardia native to North America – this is likely G.pulchella, which has naturalized in southern Ontario and Quebec although native to more southern American states.

Gaillardia

Two whites for all you white flower fanciers: Penstemon digitalis and Malva moschata – musk mallow. The Penstemon, aka foxglove beardtongue, is native to Ontario but the mallow isn’t. Both found their way to my garden with no help from me, and are quite welcome, adding cool reminders of winter snow in an otherwise hot and dry summer.

Malva moschata
Penstemon digitalis

Finally, something else that’s new. Not a flower or plant, but a design element. Mid-summer last year I started to create a few mini meadows in the front yard by simply not mowing large circles and I’m continuing the experiment this year. The whole lawn was mowed twice in April when the grass was growing an inch a day, it seemed, but not since then. This is what it looked like on Tuesday, a foggy July 1 morning. Although I have dumped some seed heads in these patches (Echinacea, ox-eye daisy, chicory…) I’m not anticipating it will be full of wildflowers – there’s already a dense root layer of grasses and dandelions that I have no interest in stripping away. I venture into the circles to cut away buckthorn and yellow dock but otherwise the circles have just been long grass, pink clover and the yellow bird’s foot trefoil. Hoping pollinators like them.

From an upstairs window it looks kinda cool – here it is through a window screen; you can see how the unmowed circles echo a smaller, almost circular mid-yard garden area in the making:

Have a great week everyone, and be sure to check out the Garden Ruminations site where Jim collects Six’s from all over the world.

31 Comments

  1. I really like your mini-meadows/pollinator patches. Will be fun to see what grows there. You could buy a packet of mixed ‘meadow seeds’ & scatter those in. I’ve only seen 2 Monarchs, 2 Tiger & 2 Black Swallow tails…one hatched in the house, chrysalis must have come in on a plant that spent the summer outside & then brought in when the weather got chilly. There have been some Skippers, Cabbage white’s & a pretty, small, blue butterfly. Lots of Bumbles & Honey Bees on all my Milkweed…great, because my Cucumber & Tomato plants & Eggplant need pollinators!

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    1. I’ve only seen one swallowtail this year so far…no caterpillars on my dill either…but yes, lots of the white cabbage butterflies, unfortunately for my cabbages!

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  2. I really like your mini meadows, I have done something similar here but stopped cutting my circle at Christmas last year. I did a post about it a couple of weeks ago. By doing this I found an orchid had popped up in April, plus lots more. It is fascinating seeing what grows that would normally be mown away and of course it brings in extra bees and butterflies.

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    1. What an interesting article!!! Such a fascinating relationship with ants. And I was pleased to do further reading to be assured that the butterflies will lay eggs on hybrid lupines (like mine) , not just the native species.

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  4. Chris: I found that link while trying to look up the tiny blue Butterfly that I’ve seen on my flowers. It’s about the caterpillar on Lupines…interesting article! Ants are important.

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  7. Mini meadows look like un-crop-circles, but are prettier than lawn. Mowing around them makes them more refined and intentional, so that they do not look neglected or abandoned. Penstemon and mallow are cool. White happens to be my favorite color.

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    1. Thanks Tony – your second line there is kinda exactly what I had intended! I know you (and a few others) like white flowers. Sometimes they are SO difficult to photograph well!

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    1. I had never heard of yellow rattle but just read a bit about it – what an interesting plant! And would be so useful in a meadow, it looks like! I might have to look for seeds…

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    1. The challenge, I think, is keeping some of the more weedy weeds out of the circles. And the buckthorn. Also will be interesting to see how dandelions compete – there’s cheek by jowl in the lawn…

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  12. Love the meadows. I have gotten rid of most lawn and am starting doe proof meadows. They have decided here Gallardia is native to the Great Plains, not the south. Go figure.

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    1. Ha! A side benefit of not mowing is that this week, after many dry and hot days, most of the lawn is starting to brown/go dormant while the circles of course are still green (and pink and yellow and white)

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  14. Your wildflower circles are great! I have a friend who attempted the same thing, mowing around a large circular area in her pasture to allow the Eryngo I wanted to photograph to flourish. Unfortunately, her horse ate most of the nicely growing circle, and that was the end of that.

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  15. I do like those wildflower circles Chris! I also like that little Buddleia.. a shame they are now considered invasive. I occasionally get a seedling from my larger ones but have never seen one in the wild here. Hope you get more butterflies soon. We are having a great year for them after almost none last year.

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