Another week with no rain…Clematis is being crispified but a few things are looking almost normal…
Whether a result of bulbs buried deeply, a huge fibrous root ball or even a bit of hand watering, there’s a few things in the garden looking pretty good this weekend – good enough certainly to add them to the Garden Ruminations collection of Six things in gardens around the world.
Let’s start with watered by hand. I planted a small patch of Zinnia seeds directly in the garden on June 8, after the sun had warmed up the soil following a cool and wet spring. Seeds were collected from a single pink flower, and I was hoping to have all pink blooms this year. Of course not, though, since pollinators went from flower to flower last year with no regard to colour. The plants themselves are still quite short and the flowers small, but I’ve given them a sip of rain barrel water every few days and they’ve responded accordingly:
Also watered by hand are the raised beds – mostly used for veggies and herbs…Nasturtiums are almost a veggie, I’d say, since I regularly add the flowers to salads. This is ‘Bloody Mary’ and I’m surprised by the variation in flower appearance. Normal or a seed mix-up, I wonder…
In the huge fibrous root ball category is Ratibida pinnata – Grey Headed Coneflower or Prairie Coneflower. This native (to a large part of North America) perennial will form a large clump over time and its seeds wind up everywhere, germinating best in bare or disturbed soil. It seems to love heat and very little rain.
Bulbs planted deeply right now means Lilium. I haven’t spotted the dreaded Japanese Lily Beetle in my garden (yet) although from what I’ve read they’re definitely in the county. For now I’m enjoying the sight and fragrance of these tall oriental and trumpet lilies:
Another lily is in full bloom – the tiger lily, Lilium lancifolium. It forms and drops small bulbils quite readily from higher leaf nodes, which help a single bulb become a quite large colony in just a few years. The bright orange is a welcome splotch of colour in the garden right now!
Finally, I spotted a swallowtail butterfly in May, and last Sunday I had the first (of many, I hope) monarch butterflies flitting around a clump of pale purple coneflower – Echinacea pallida. A hopeful sign for the rest of the summer! Have a great weekend everyone!
County Gardening 
A lovely sea of lilies and you have done so well with the Zinnia.
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Thanks Rosie!
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Zinnia and lilium flowers are quite drought-resistant. You’re right to grow them. And the photo of the butterfly is superb! Do you still have water reserves? After all, you’re not too far from the lake…
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I’m less than a kilometre from Lake Ontario but, sadly, that proximity doesn’t influence the water level in my well. For watering the garden I’m completely at the mercy of the weather gods…I have 2,300 litres available in my rain barrels but they are all almost empty at this point.
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Are you not allowed to drill a well at your house?
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We have a well..that’s our water source for drinking etc inside. The water table gets lower though as the summer progresses and I’m careful with it…don’t want to be in the shower when the well goes dry!
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I had hoped to add Ratibida pinnata to my garden this year but could not find any plants for sale, and figured I would either go to where I can pinch some seed or buy bare root for next spring. It grows near me with Monarda fistulosa and I love the yellow and lavender color together. I finally saw monarchs in my garden as well, though they had been sneakily laying eggs on my milkweed for a while now. I guess they must work the same hours I do!
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That’s funny! You should try to snip some seed heads later this summer…the seeds are so small I don;t even try to scatter them, they just travel, mysteriously, all over,,,,
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Lots of lovely pictures but you definitely saved the best till last, the butterfly photo is gorgeous.
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Thanks Helen – I was very happy to be in the right place at the right time!
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Zinnias are always pretty. Nasturtium is gorgeous! Do you have Milkweed for the Monarchs? Hope you get some rain, soon. An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail was here a few days ago…for 2 hours, loved the Verbena b. …she was so intent on the flowers, that I got to take lots & lots of photos.
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There’s lots of milkweed here…I haven’t yet seen any sign of caterpillars enjoying it though….and it does appear that the common milkweed – Asclepias syriaca – is susceptible to our drought conditions…
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The butterfly is gorgeous, but I must say I’m as taken with the ribbon-like appearance of the ray florets on the coneflower. Ratibida pinnata didn’t ring a bell. When I looked it up, I found the reason; it’s listed as “present but rare” in exactly one Texas county! It’s an especially attractive one.
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One of the nice things about R. pinnata is that it’s tall – the flowers reach my eye level most years (they’re a foot or two short of that this year…) and I don’t have to bend over to admire it’s intricacies.
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Great shot of the monarch on the Echinacea! Sorry to hear about the scant rain situation. We have too much here in the central Midwest–flooding in the Chicago area, and close to it just to the north here in S. Wisconsin. But, anyway, your plants look happy. The Zinnias and Lilies are lovely. I hope you’ll get some needed precipitation soon.
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Thanks Beth – hoping that the forecast is accurate and we get a drop or two overnight so I don’t have to water the tomatoes tomorrow!
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Fancy varieties of nasturtium tend to be variable like that. It is one of their many delightful attributes. Except for the few that are true to type, their progeny eventually revert back to basic yellow and orange after several generations. Of course, even the worst nasturtium is pretty rad.
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That’s good to know – thanks! And nice that I can brag about my fancy Nasturtiums!
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Zinnias are my go to choice as a cutting perennial and pollinator magnet. They seem particularly drought resistant. I also like Prairie Coneflower. They fill up the bare soil places in my garden and I like to keep several clumps for next year. I cut mine back after blooming and enjoy a second blooming in the fall.
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The second blooming must be on shorter stems? Aside from annuals they seem to provide the most vibrant colour in August here.
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Crispified? LOL. Everything looks pretty wonderful to me.
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…you’ve not seen the Clematis… 🙂
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Fabulous lilies. I would love a clump of lilium lancifolium. Gorgeous butterfly shot.
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The lilies are pretty cool, aren’t they?
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I was seeing a similar amount of flower colour variation on the same Nasturtium plant last year, never mind between different plants. It’s year one for Lilium lancifolium in my garden and there are bulbils the length of every stem, which makes me a bit nervous. It will be interesting to see who wins, lilies or slugs.
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Interesting about the Nasturtium! Possibly the only silver lining about our dry summer is No Slugs! I don’t worry about baby lilies – only a few of them, when just left to fall, seem to actually grow into a new plant, perhaps because there’s other perennials at the base of the lilies that shade them out.
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Your photos are magical Chris. Love the Prairie coneflower, and the butterfly too. 😁
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Thank you!!
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