July in the Northern Hemisphere

[Mariette]

Cohan, Your pics make me sorry for not living in an area where a rockery would look at home!

@ Leena: are You teasing with these beautiful blue poppies lurking in the background?

@ Robert: these hybrids of lilies are very beautiful, and it´s good to learn that they are easier in the garden than the species!

Unfortunately, no such special plants in my garden:

Aconitum ´Stainless Steel´with Clematis mandshurica in the background.



Digitalis parviflora



Thalictrum przewalkii HeHeHe 103



Galega x hartlandii ´His Majesty



Rosa ´Cottage Maid´, aptly named, doesn´t care about the lots of rain.

[Leena]

Mariette, yes, the blue poppies were M.bailey, still flowering a week ago but now they are over.

You have very nice summer flowers in your garden, I especially liked the Thalictrum and pale blue Aconitum.
I hope the floods we are reading in the news are not very close to you?

[Robert]

Mariette,

I agree with Leena, your have some very nice summer flowers in your garden. My favorite is Digitalis parviflora. I once grew this species in the Placerville, California garden. In addition, the Aconitum is very nice. I am attempting to grow Aconitum columbianum in our Sacramento garden. They were doing well until a skunk dug the largest plant out of the pot it was growing in. I found the plant on the ground and replanted the bare rooted plant. At least it is still alive.

Concerning the disastrous flooding in Germany, I certainly hope you are out of harms way. There seem to be disastrous weather events occurring throughout the world. The August 2020 derecho that swept across the Midwestern U.S.A., the major dust storms in China/Mongolia, the wildfires in Australia and Western North America and the recent heat wave in Northwestern North America are a few examples. Stay safe! And I hope that your garden continues to thrive.



Here in California, the consequences of the current drought and years of chronic well below average precipitation are stressed ecosystems. The native oaks, Quercus douglasii, on the Placerville property are becoming drought stressed. The leaves are browning and it is only mid-July! I first noted the stressed oak trees in the Sacramento Valley (Lower Sonoran Life Zone) in mid-June. Now there are many native tress showing drought symptoms in the foothills (Upper Sonoran Life Zone) of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.



Here one can see the progression of drying-yellowing leaves. In a week or two all the leaves will be yellow and brown. The dead leaves tend to cling to the twigs, as an abscission layer never forms as occurs with healthy deciduous trees in the autumn.



The slopes on the Placerville property are dry, as pictured, each summer. This is normal. Native trees showing sighs of drought stress in July is not normal. Occasionally our native oak trees will show signs of drought stress late in the season, September – October, when the autumn weather continues to be hot and dry.



This Epilobium canum ssp. latifolia has survived years of neglect at the Placerville property. This species thrives in our Sacramento garden, with or without irrigation.

[Mariette]

Thank You, Robert and Leena! Fortunately, there are no severe problems in the area where I live, but many of the flooded districts are within an hour´s drive. We did have a very wet first half of the year with an amount of rainfall up to the rainfall of all of 2018, which was the extreme on the dry side. The last 3 years were so dry that elders and birches withered - I prefer to struggle with the tropical growth caused by very much rain instead of trying to cope in vain with extremes of heat - we faced 40°C, never known before here, and  drought completely new to our region.
There have never been such disastrous floods in inner Germany within more than 100 years, with so many lives lost. Thank You for Your concern!

[cohan]

Thanks, Tristan, Jeff, Mariette! I can't really say rockeries look exactly natural in my setting-- there is no exposed stone in nature here until you get to the foothills biome, which begins at maybe 40 km away, but really not very rocky until even farther than that...  but it is mowed outside the gardens, and I try for a naturalistic look within them, at least!
Mariette-- lovely woodland plants ( I also have woodland gardens, though there are more spring flowers there than other things!). Glad you are not directly impacted by the floods! We had some unusually hot weather this year also, but fortunately not 40C- though other areas did get it- we only got to 35, but more hot days in a row than we are used to seeing.
Now we are getting smoke from fires far away...

Robert- it must be very distressing to see such dramatic and damaging change happening first hand..

[Robert]

Mid-summer has arrived. Currently daytime temperatures are hot ~ 100 F (37.8 C) with a fairly strong monsoonal flow from the south. For us the humidity is high, but it is nothing like what is experienced in the eastern U.S.A. This July is on pace to be the warmest July on record. The garden is challenged. I am doing the best I can to be a resilient gardener. Finding plants and gardening techniques that work to create a garden that is satisfying and beautiful is my prime directive.



Lilium henryi thrives in our garden. This seedling is particularly nice.



Lilium henryi hybrids are tough.



Some Lilium henryi hybrids are better than others, however they all seem to be heat and virus tolerant.



When I was young, I read the Mother Earth News (a magazine). Their slogan was “doing more with less”.  Being retired and isolated from the horticultural world, this course of action works for me as a gardener. Zinnia elegans is a very common annual species, nothing special, certainly not a rare species or even a rock garden plant. Several years ago I bought a few packs of Zinnia elegans seed at the grocery. I learn a great deal breeding my own Zinnias and they thrive in our garden. I like them and have fun breeding them. For me this is “doing more with less” and making do with what is close at hand.



Tithonia rotundifolia is another common annual. I breed these too. From one pack of seed I now have a robust line that towers over my head with large red flowers. I have a dwarf line started that only grows 30 cm tall. I am working on bi-colors and yellows. There are heirloom yellows, but I like to see what I can do from one package of generic seed.

[Robert]

I also breed Dahlias. This is one of my first hybrids. It was easy to do, like x like. I like tall Dahlias…



… but I like single flowers. There are not many tall single Dahlias out there, so I create my own.



… so I end up with garden scenes like this – lots of flowers, color, and surprises.



Habranthus and Zephranthes species do well in our garden. I have just started breeding them. This is Habranthus robustus.



Zephranthes mesocolon blooms reliably in our garden. Hot weather is not an issue with this species.

[Robert]

Rhodophiala montana is another species that does well in our garden. I have only one plant, however I have been able to self it. I will most likely be dealing with a genetic bottleneck, but I will see if I get any segregation in the seedlings.



So, now I have a fresh seed flat with various Habranthus, Zephranthus, Gladiolus, and Dahlia hybrids. There are a few other items such as the selfed Rhodophiala seeds.



Generally alpine species do not do well in our Sacramento garden, however Dasiphora fruticosa does extremely well. Yes--I know, I know--this species is one of the most commonly planted species in the Inter-mountain regions of the western U.S.A. I like this plant because I gathered the seed near the crest of the Crystal Range (my home turf), and it seems very happy in our garden. Here it is July and it is still blooming.  I must be very odd, because I grow and like species like Artemisia tridentata ssp. vaseyana (billions grow in the Great Basin of North America), Artemisia arbuscula ssp. arbuscula, and Artemisia ludoviciana ssp. incompta.

[shelagh]

There does seem to be some extreme weather conditions at the moment. Here in Bury, Greater Manchester (notorious for rain) we have temps of 28/29/30C this week. The greenhouse which Brian has emptied has had temps of well in excess of 120. Sorry for mixed C & F but being old we still use Farenheit but weather reports  use Centigrade.

Brian seems to have a watering can permanently attached to his right arm morning and night. Plants which normally flower in mid August are out now.

Rain forecast for weekend and we can't wait.

[cohan]

Interesting breeding projects, Robert. I'm not generally ambitious enough to deal with annuals-- all that replanting every year! I like to plant things once and be done with it forever...lol but the results much be much quicker for breeding! As for Dahlias, singles are much nicer!

Shelagh- lots of interesting weather all over! Warmer and drier than usual for July here, also, though luckily I have not had to do much watering, I hate dragging a hose around...

[Roma]

Evening Primrose, Oenothera acaulis lives up to its name.  I have never actually seen it opening but it usually happens between 7 and 8 pm and has withered by morning.  It is biennial and dies after flowering.  It is a long time since I planted the originals but it self seeds and appears most years.  There are 3 plants here with one or two flowers most nights but last night there were three.

[cohan]

Roma- the Oenotheras all seem very appealing, but I wonder whether I'd ever see the flowers...lol Generally for bug reasons in spring to fall, once I come in (6-6:30 usu on days I'm outside working on the acreage) there is no further going out!

I missed posting in June, it seems, but there were of course lots of flowers.. here are just a few from 21-23 of that month..

Gypsophila repens with Saponaria lutea



Linum lewisii with Castilleja sp



Papaver alpinum with Gypsophila repens



Geum, Gypsophila, Papaver, Armeria, Allium etc

[Tristan_He]

Anthemis 'Sauce Hollandaise'



Eryngium x zabelii. A couple of years ago I noticed that this seemed to be going backwards, and a little investigation found some crown rot. I dug it up, split the roots and replanted it in several locations. This is the original plant which seems to have grown back from deeper taproots, minus the rot. I have three other plants of similar size now. The insects love it.



A rose whose label I lost long ago! I prefer the single ones, they provide pollen and nectar for the insects.



Rosa 'Super Excelsa'



Clematis 'Jackmannii Superba'. Clematis are very hit and miss here due to the large number of slugs and snails, which can kill them when they are small. Once they get established they seem to reach an 'escape velocity' and don't get attacked. This one has definitely reached this stage! It's growing next to the alpina I posted earlier in the year.

[Tristan_He]

Another rose whose name I don't know. It scrambles through a Rhododendron and provides interest later in the season. Actually the colour competes with quite a few of the Rhodys!



Thistledown from the Cirsium rivulare - this doesn't set seed, so no self-seeding problems but the finches will have to find seed to eat elsewhere.





Campanula lactiflora is very impressive this year. This is a wonderful tall perennial for a woodland edge setting.

[Tristan_He]

View of the dry woodland border with Astrantia major in the foreground.



Miniature clocks of Pilosella aurantiaca. This pretty little lawn weed wildflower with orange flowers is delightful. The flowers are good for insects and later the seed is good for the goldfinches.



Digitalis parviflora is the most genuinely perennial foxglove I know. It's not to everyone's taste (at least, my wife and daughter don't like it) but I like the architectural shape of the spikes.



A Clematis viticella hybrid.



Lathyrus latifolius.