Summer Scenes in the Garden

Summer is here, and the deep greening of the garden has begun. A few perennials and annuals celebrate our heat and humidity and provide splashes of color, but these hot months are all about foliage in its myriad forms and variegations. 

First, some color: This tropical hibiscus is so beautiful that I plan to bring it inside later to overwinter. For now it sits on our patio, and I have a good view of it from our kitchen and dining room.

Here are a few more June blooms:The large top photo is from my new pollinator garden, with purple Veronica and perennial Helenium. Do you see the bee? Small photos left to right: Hummingbird plant, Dicliptera suberecta, is also known as Uruguayan firecracker plant; One of the very best yellow reblooming daylilies is Hemerocallis 'Going Bananas'; Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowflake' has double blooms, unlike the common oak leaf hydrangea, which has single blooms; 'Anthony Waterer' Spirea has May - June blooms but will produce more flowers if spent blooms are removed.

When the day is nearly done - but not quite - the sun sends shafts of light through the woodland garden. It is my favorite time of the day. Sparks flash under and over and through the foliage; and like a soul lifted out of darkness, the garden is transformed.

Here are closer views of some of the woodland plants:Clockwise from top left: Breynia disticha is called Snow on the Mountain bush and also Snowbush. It is not hardy in my area. It is in a pot, and I will bring it inside for winter; Hosta 'Rhino Hide'; Cercis canadensis 'Whitewater' is a weeping variegated redbud tree; Zantedeschia albomaculata, or White Spotted Leaf Calla Lily; Fatsia 'Spider's Web'; Bird's nest fern (Asplenium nidus) is another plant in my garden that is not hardy. It is in a pot so I can bring it in for winter.

Clockwise from top left: Peacock moss (Selaginella uncinata) and Athyrium filix-femina, commonly called lady fern, grow next to a mossy rock; A close-up of the Peacock moss; Native Trillium and Autumn Fern (Dryopteris erythrosora);Hostas are beginning to bloom - I don't remember the name of this one!

Finally, here is a Daddy Longlegs, stretched out, taking it easy on a hosta leaf. This non-venomous insect has 6 legs and is not a true spider:

Happy Gardening!

Creepy-Crawly August Garden

This has not been a bad summer. Hot and sticky, yes, but not unreasonable for Alabama. This past week we had a couple of cooler mornings with lower humidity. A touch of fall? Almost! I have continued developing a new area, which I am calling the pollinator garden. I will feature it in a later blog post. Meanwhile, here are some images from around the August garden, including some creepy-crawlies! 

I put this colorful hanging bougainvillea behind the birdbath in front of the house. Bougainvillea is not hardy here, but it was inexpensive and I won't feel guilty treating it as an annual. The plant on the right is Tropicana Canna Lily.

During the dog days of summer the shady woodland garden is a nice retreat, and I often find myself walking there during late afternoon. The light that time of day is magical, and I love the shadow play, as seen here around the cast iron plant: 

The planting beds in the woodland garden are augmented in the warm months with potted tropical plants, which add color and texture and help fill in the area: 

Clockwise from top left: Hardy begonia (Begonia grandis) is planted in the ground, but variegated fig, Dracaena Marginata, and bromeliads are tropicals that move inside for the winter.

Lady fern (Athyrium) and Peacock Moss (Selaginella uncinata) grow well together next to one of the moss paths:

I also have some potted succulents that spend frost-free months outdoors. I bought most of these as nameless specimens, and I don't know much about them. However, I am delighted that some of them are producing offspring. The small pups may be removed from the mother plant and planted to produce more.

One more thing: It is spider season! Cobwebs are everywhere, and I have to be careful to keep myself from becoming entangled in them as I walk around the garden. One day I captured images of this large web high up in the trees:

I wonder how the tiny spider that created this web knew how to do it? Webs are often spun in the dark, and this web is quite large for such a little creature. I don't see how the spider was able to get a full picture of what it was doing! Yet the design was beautifully formed. 

More spider pics: I found this big black-and-yellow argiope spider amidst my tomato plants, and she had encased an egg sack in a web on a tomato plant. By spring, up to a thousand baby spiders may come out of this sack, though only a small percentage will survive. These particular spiders are sensitive to the environment, and their presence is a sign of a healthy, well-balanced ecology. They are also good guys to have in the garden, so I will leave the spider sack alone till the babies hatch in a few months. Hopefully, the dying tomato plant will remain supportive till then.  

Speaking of tomato plants, we still have a handful of tomatoes on the vine, but soon they will be gone. I was fascinated, and a little horrified, when I discovered this creature, and several of his relatives, on my tomato plants:Tomato hornworm

My first inclination was to kill these caterpillars, but tomato hornworms do turn into rather magnificent moths, which hover about like hummingbirds. And they make a good meal for a bird, too. I only have a few tomatoes remaining so I picked the hornworms off and tossed them behind the wood pile rather than killing them. But next year I will be on the alert, armed with insecticidal soap, which they hate. And maybe my garden spiders will help me keep them under control.

You also may enjoy this older post,  Late Afternoon in the Woodland Garden, and if you want more information about spiders be sure to see My Little Orb Weaver.