The Garden in July
The flowers that can take the midsummer heat, and the flowers that can't
You know how obsessive gardeners like to joke about not being able to go away on vacation during the summer? Well I’m glad I didn’t go anywhere this month, because we’ve had heatwave after heatwave here in Brooklyn, and the garden has been especially needy, so I can’t imagine how it would do if I were away for more than two days. I just know I’d come home to some sad-looking plants.
It’s definitely been a water-every-day kind of month here for the most part. We’ve had a few rainy days, but mostly we’ve had sunny days in the 80s and 90s, and the watering cans have been constantly out. I have two that I use on rotation—I always have one filling up in the kitchen sink while I’m out watering with the other one, and it’s a lot of trudging back and forth between the terrace and kitchen. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a hose out on the terrace, but I don’t know. The morning watering is a very calming time for me. Peep likes it, too, I think. He does love to sunbathe on the terrace, and I have to be careful not to sprinkle him with water.
It’s always interesting at this point in the summer to see what’s thriving, what’s still hanging on, and what just can’t handle high temperatures. Whenever I see cornflowers drying up and the lace flowers producing smaller and smaller flowers until they produce no flowers at all, my first instinct is to assume I did something wrong. But lots of plants don’t like a really hot summer, especially on a terrace that gets more sun than usual. At this time of year I just have to accept that some annuals will start to die off. It’s all right, because I have plenty of plants that are still sending off blooms and are happier than ever. The dahlias and zinnias in particular are thrilled about the heat, and the celosia is getting so close to blooming.
Other plants, like the violas and nemesia, are still flowering, though pretty sparsely now. I think that they’re just waiting for the fall, and once the weather cools off they’ll be showing off again.
Sowing
Sunflowers: I already mentioned it, but I’ve been planting sunflower seeds so I can get a little height in the fall. I’m growing ‘Astra Rose Cream’—I figured that it might look better with the rest of the plants than a traditional yellow sunflower, though I like those too.
Linaria: In the July section of her book A Year Full of Pots, Sarah Raven writes that she sows some linaria in mid-summer in pots to fill in any gaps. I’m growing ‘Fairy Bouquet,’ and I have no idea how it will look or if it will germinate and bloom in this climate, but it’s worth a shot.
Lunaria: Not to be confused with linaria! I already mentioned it in my last post, but I have some honesty seeds growing in the raised bed—they germinated and then sort of stalled out, so I transplanted some of the seedlings into a pot to keep in the shade. However I did just spot some dried honesty seedheads on the Brooklyn Promenade, so I wonder if I planted mine a few weeks too early? Maybe I’ll take a cue from Mother Nature and do another planting soon.
Hollyhocks: Very excited about these! Hollyhocks are definitely a top flower for me, though I’ve always been too daunted to grow them. I’m finally giving them a try, though. I threw some ‘Indian Spring’ seeds into the raised bed, and I figured I can let them grow and then transplant them into grow bags in the spring.
In Bloom
Roses: ‘Carding Mill’ is in its third flush and is doing so much better now that the aphids are gone. Remember the mystery with the too-pink ‘Windermere?’ The people at David Austin think that I must have been sent a ‘Queen of Sweden’ by mistake, so they’re sending over a ‘Windermere’ in the spring, which is very nice of them.
Nepeta: I bought this ‘Montrose White’ nepeta as a tiny little plant at the Gowanus Nursery pop-up last spring, and now it’s so much bigger and just blooming away and always filled with bees.
Snapdragons: I really didn’t think this ‘Chantilly Light Salmon’ would still be blooming in the heatwave, but I’m still getting plenty of flowers to cut every week—the stems are shorter than they were at first, but the plant isn’t showing any signs of slowing down.
Zinnias: So, so happy with these Floret ‘Precious Metals.’ I’m getting so many flowers from the four or five plants I put together in a pot, and I love the colors: all pale pinks and apricots.
Cosmos: All of the cosmos I planted (‘Apricot Lemonade,’ ‘Apricotta,’ and ‘Rubinato’) are still blooming, though they’ve been a bit battered by the heat. The Apricottas are getting a bit leggy, and the Rubinatos are each doing their own weird thing—one of the plants decided to only start producing tiny flowers, while another plant is turning out flowers that are pink with dark red rings in the middle. Weird but very pretty.
Dahlias: Of all the Floret ‘Petite Florets’ I planted, I have only two plants left, which is entirely my own fault, having put some of the young plants under the mystery pipes of last week’s post. I did keep one of those mystery vapor-affected plants, and it’s not doing terribly well—droopy flowers, stunted height—though the flowers are still pretty enough for me to keep it around. But this other plant—it’s super tall, and I love the blooms on it. Collarette, with pointed petals that get smaller and frillier towards the centers. And when it’s on the plant or in the vase for a few days it fades to the prettiest pale pink.
Scabiosa: The plants are spindly but tall, and the ‘Fata Morgana’ blooms keep coming. My favorite, though, is the ‘Oxford Blue,’ which looks different than the plant I bought back in Portland. I saved the seeds from it and sowed them this year, and they must have been cross-pollinated with another scabiosa I grew because the blooms are coming out a more pinkish lavender. Smaller than the original Oxford Blue, but prettier.
Thunbergia: So the thunbergia I planted in the small pot isn’t as pretty as it was last month, but the plants I put in the large, former sweet pea pot have climbed almost to the top of the teepee.
Verbena: I planted verbena ‘Bonariensis’ seeds very randomly, and the plants are finally blooming. That’s one, above, in a grow bag with a dahlia, and I even have one planted in one of the window boxes, which I completely forgot about until I saw a verbena climbing up the white nicotiana.
Echinacea: I love the colors of the ‘Supreme Cantaloupe’ echinacea now in bloom, though it’s hard to see in this photo since they’ve faded out a bit. I’m still waiting on the ‘Pallida’ to put out more than one bloom, but this plant keeps sending out new stalks.
New Additions
One of my very favorite stoop finds to date is this terracotta window box planter that I found on the sidewalk while on a run in Park Slope. It was halfway full of potting mix (too good to throw out) and I carried it a mile and a half back to our apartment, and my forearms hurt for days. But it was worth it. It gave me a good excuse to go to the Union Square Greenmarket to pick up a new plant for it, too. I don’t usually love Shasta daisies, but I love this frilly one (it’s called ‘Coconut!’), even more now that I’ve had it for a month and have seen how many blooms it produces. I planted it with a verbena ‘Polaris’ I already had, and they’re both doing so well together.
I also had to go back to the Greenmarket after my geranium ‘Rozanne’ died of some kind of bacterial blight. I love the pot it was in. Another stoop find, though not as nice as the window box—it’s an ornate-looking, terracotta-looking thing that I think is made of some kind of plastic foam, pretty beat up, actually. I planted a pink nemesia I already had, and picked up some apricot vinca at the market. Vinca’s another plant I don’t usually like, but I couldn’t help but be drawn to the color of this one.
And, I picked up a hydrangea. There are so many hydrangeas blooming in Brooklyn, and I really wished I could grow one on the terrace, even though I was sure it was too sunny. But this one I got, ‘Game Changer Pink’, is supposed to fare better in the sun than hydrangeas normally do, and it also is good in pots, so I decided to give it a try. I keep it on the shadier side of the terrace, and so far it seems happy enough, sitting next to the nicotiana that hasn’t slowed down at all. The ‘Lavender Cloud’ is especially good. It blooms only at night and sends off a scent that I’m still not sure whether I like or hate, but anything is better than the smell of a hot night in the city.
Your diligent watering is paying off -- your garden is looking beautiful! The Carding Mill rose is breathtaking. And thanks for the inspiration to plant sunflowers for autumn! I lost most of my summer sunflower seedlings to spring slugs, so this is a nice reminder that I have another shot at it.
STOOPFINDS!