Bright And Cheerful Summer Flowering Sun Lovers

Summer Flowering Sun Lovers

My garden is a delight right now thanks to my summer flowering sun lovers. I have neighbors coming through the back gate just to see the riot of blooming beauties! It makes them happy to be part of the activity that is a garden. The little beds are exploding with summer flowering sun lovers and they’re falling over one another to be noticed.

Lilies are opening up everywhere with gorgeous maroon, yellow and patterned faces. I decided to pop the bulbs in wherever I had a little empty spot and now they’ve pushed their way through the violets and the gazanias, the lavender and the alstroemerias to blast out their vibrant colors and perfumes of summer.

The first of the Orientals are in bloom now, as are my Green Lilies which have actually turned out to be a beautiful shade of yellow. They are so lovely, I can’t begrudge that they’ve been swapped at birth but I do want my other babies too please!

I also have some lovely trumpet lilies, some of which are deep yellow flowers and some of which are regal trumpet lilies with their white blooms with burgundy stripes. Some of these sun loving perennials are still at budding stage and their long fat burgundy buds match the clump of gazanias they’re growing out of perfectly. Some are still hiding behind the shirley poppies that are taking over from the opiums.

These blowsy beauties are determined not to be confined and drape themselves languorously over the other plants. I have to be strict and prop them up so they don’t hide the pink lisianthus which are suddenly unfurling and showing off their inverted rosy tutus. I’m so happy these ballet dancers like it here in my cool garden. I thought they would prefer a warmer stage.

Yellow yarrow adds sunshine on a cloudy day, as do the evening primrose volunteers which have sprung up at the back of the beds and even through the dry lawn. I don’t need to eat their sulfur petals to enjoy their calming benefits.

Sweet peas have taken over the trellis and I’m enjoying a wonderful display of purple mixes, some vivid, some gentle, which are new to me. They are the perfect background for the last bearded iris, a gentle tone of apricot behind the last of the violet opium patch. The unmistakable scent of sweet peas fills the little garden and they’re in good company with some yellow and orange iceland poppies that pop up here and there in the raised bed. I love that color mix, it’s so refreshing.

Hanging over the driveway, sun loving ground covers galore are coming into their own. The little lotus flower cutting that I planted has spread out far beyond its pot and its first orange claw flowers are gleaming. Surrounded by petunias and lobelias, another clump of tutus wave their skirts in the breeze, this time fuchsias, just launching their summer season.

In my courtyard the calla lilies are making a late appearance – red, white and Picasso.

I always thought Calla lilies bloomed in late spring but, aside from the hot house, indoor variety, and the wonderful huge white ones that cover the roadside and spring up everywhere in the garden, these are the first I’ve seen this season. I just adore these flowers and used to grow them from seed, but here I can get the rhizomes so easily that it’s not really worth the extra trouble I’d have to take to get the babies to survive the winter.

Having said that, I’m delighted to see a crop of little lily babies from the scales I planted popping their heads out in the shade of the rose tree. That’s the thing about a garden, everything’s so ephemeral and yet there’s always the promise of more to come if we’re patient.

Those summer sun worshippers, blue agapanthus are growing all along the ivy covered courtyard wall, along with yet more pots of lilies. These lilies are in their second season with me now and are bigger and better than were there before, with lots more blooms.

It’s not only human neighbors who come to visit. A family of sparrows has discovered Erin’s bird feeder and are having a raucous time there. I see them now through the window as I write this, impatiently taking their turns to scatter sunflower seeds to the bed below. Across the lawn, two hummingbirds fight each other over their bird feeder.

Monarch butterflies land on the herbs by the kitchen door and bees are busy everywhere.

And down below, slithering across the drive way, a little snake in my Eden, adding its own luminous tapestry to Paradise.

Now is the time to shop for spring bulbs so you have a spectacular summer garden.

Happy gardening and please don’t forget your sunscreen. There’s so much skin cancer about, you must protect your skin.

By the way, here is a link to a list of gopher resistant plants: http://www.groundcoversandgardening.com/gopher resistant plants.

If you want to buy plants that deer probably won’t eat, look here.

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