July 2015 in the Northern Hemisphere

[Roma]

Evening primroses on July 1st
Oenothera 'Sunset Boulevard' , one with an odd coloured flower
Oenothera acaulis with tiny flies

[Brian Ellis]

What a lovely colour that 'Sunset Boulevard' is - just right for the weather we are having down south!

[johnralphcarpenter]

This Watsonia seems very happy here - never had so many flower spikes.

[Leena]

It is Geranium-time in my garden now. Most are Geranium x magnificum, the big pink one is 'Patricia' and then there are some different kinds of Geranium pratense, single and fl pl.
Also lactiflora peonies are flowering and one picture of my seed grown quadruple hybrid peonies which flowered now for the first time, I will have to give them more space in the autumn. There are some very nice ones among them, and all have big flowers.
The last picture is of a rose from Norway, called Hurdal after the place where it was found and now it is grown in many places in Scandinavia..

[Matt T]

Leena, your garden is beautiful. It must make up for having to endure the long winter.

[Maggi Young]

 Leena, I was thinking the same as Matt - you have such a long and tough winter but it is so lovely to see the lush and healthy growth evident now in your beautiful garden.

[Leena]

Thanks Matt and Maggi, the sunny side of the garden is now it's best. Winter is too long here, but luckily the last couple of winters have been reasonably mild and I could have enjoyed snowdrops and early spring flowers for a longer time than usually.
The garden is lush, indeed, small plants can't survive in these beds, and sometimes I envy other people's  tidy rock gardens, but my soil is not so good for rock garden plants as it is. Someday I want to make a raised sand bed where also smaller plants can grow.

[Jupiter]

Leena thank you for sharing those pictures, your garden is inspirational. I love the different shades of purple and the mounds of varying texture and colour punctuated by those vertical spires of digitalis and verbascum?

[johnralphcarpenter]

Leena thank you for sharing those pictures, your garden is inspirational. I love the different shades of purple and the mounds of varying texture and colour punctuated by those vertical spires of digitalis and verbascum?

Indeed! My kind of garden.

[johnw]

Yesterday GordT & Martin from Sledding Hill paid a visit so we made the rounds to a few gardens. First stop was Rockburn - Stephen & Sheila, the owners left and Gord & Martin right.

Despite the warm 25c day there was no shortage of Meconopsis about as Stephen has been dividing like mad and spreading them round the garden.

A little scene with Asaum europaeum, why tidy this up?

Sheila inspects her yak Wada.

On to Donna's garden  - another lurker - where we spied a nice dark Cypripedium reginae.

Lastly Gord was amazed by this Arisaema hybrid - at least we both presume it's a hybrid given its size & think I suspected the flower was more creamy yellow than the white of camtschatcense  - which I had randomly plucked from my own bog and given to Donna as a tiny seedling four or five years ago.

johnw

[johnw]

And I was also thinking your garden is so lovely, and tidy too. Does the wind ever blow where you are? 

johnw

[Leena]

Thanks Jamus and Ralph, I think this is the best part of the garden right now  , and the photos are flattering, you can't see all the weeds, and I don't even want to think about the amount of ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria) and other weeds growing elsewhere in the garden.
John, my garden is quite sheltered by trees so the wind gets here very rarely, the downside of it is that this June we've got a lot of rain and some of the peony buds got mold when there was no wind to dry the plants.

vertical spires of digitalis and verbascum?

Yes, they are ordinary Digitalis grandiflora and Verbascum thapsus, which seed around. I weed some but let some grow because I like them and the vertical and informal effect they give. Later in July and August there are also white form of Verbascum nigrum which is short lived but seeds around.
In the sunny beds most of my plants are very common, later in the summer also phloxes and asters flower, but the woodland beds are my favourite and there I try to grow more special plants. Right now there are not so much flowering in them, blue Corydalis, some Meconopsis (I'm trying to grow more of them, but have only a few yet) and Martagon lilies which are starting to flower soon.

[fleurbleue]

Very nice pics Leena  Very hot days here and all the garden is suffering... 

[Leena]

Thanks Nicole.
I have been keeping eye on Helleborus seed pods, they will be ripe any day now, because the week-end the weather was very hot. Helleborus multifidus which was the earliest to flower opened it's seedpods (one day they were closed and then next day the seeds were gone) and I didn't get those seeds, but at least I will get seedlings when they germinate below the mother plant in the spring.

[Giles]

Magnolia delavayi.
A large evergreen. Mine is about 10 ft tall and 15 ft across after 7 years. Good on an alkaline soil. The flowers open in the evening, and shed their petals the following morning. They are about 8 inches across and are very fragrant. You can see the caducous stamens (stamens are shed).