Garden bloggers' bloom day June 2014

I was reading some snarky garden article the other day about the overuse of salvia by landscape designers and I looked out into my yard in horror . . . you guys, I have SO much salvia. In my defense, I was sent 21 of them by High Country Gardens in the weirdest order mix-up ever, but I've still got a lot that are my doing.

Salvia sylvestris 'Blue Hill'

I love them and the bees love them. And they smell so good and sweaty. 'Caradonna' and 'May Night' are still going and will go on all summer.

Salvia 'Indigo Spires' is just getting going

But the most exciting thing right now is that my Yucca recurvifolia bloomed! Hot damn.

Lilium martagon 'Arabian Night'

Helenium 'Mardi Gras'

Eremurus 'Lemon Meringue' are just finishing up

Verbascum epixanthium

Fuschia magellanica 'Hawkshead'

Scabiosa caucasica 'Fama Blue'

Asclepias speciosa

Penstemon x 'Enor'

Agastache aurantica 'Navajo Sunset'

Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion'

Papaver 'Drama Queen'

Papaver hybridium 'Lauren's Grape'

Verbena boariensis

Clarkia amoena 'Aurora'

Agrostemma githago

This summer has really snuck up on me . . . I feel like I'll be putting the garden to bed for winter if I don't stop and enjoy things. Happy bloom day and thank you to our host Carol!

Just some photos from the garden

Remember when I planted the lower part of the raised bed and was like, "Woo! I planted these Brussels sprouts too close together! I'll just move them later." 

I never got around to moving them when they were small.

When I moved some of them to the upper bed they made giant sad faces the next day.

They are slowly starting to spring back but BE YE NOT SO DUMB.  Learn from my mistakes and just plant them two feet apart from the get-go.

Things grow.  A lot.  Sometimes I forget that.  Remember this area?

It's really filled in.

I really like it when things start to look a little feral (and apparently birds like it too) so this makes me really happy. My pole beans are starting to climb and flower now that the rain has finally stopped.

This tiny six inch bush bean plant is producing already.  Who's hungry for five beans?

FREAKING PENSTEMON, I want to marry you and have a million of your babies.  How gorgeous are they?

Other things that are making me happy: dahlias!  The Mae West of the garden world. 

My Japanese painted fern.  The Japanese do everything better.  They probably never plant their Brussels sprouts too close together and they never forget their parents' anniversary.

The hot coral bells peeking out from my heuchera.

SWOON.

New bedroom light fixture

The weather has been awful here.  I'm starting to feel like those children in the Ray Bradbury story where they live on Venus and only see the sun for two hours every seven years.  I obsessively check the weather widget on my iPod and expend more emotional energy than is necessary fretting about rain.  A friend has taken to calling it Junuary.

You know who doesn't care about the rain?  Lupine.  Lupine is the big dumb hippie at the festival, high on mescaline, STOKED that it's raining again.  We're having a party!

My penstemon is also doing well.  I'd read that they don't usually bloom the first year after being transplanted but, lo and behold, the start I put in two months ago is blooming!  I think it's because I bought this plant from the Master Gardener sale.  

 

Heather, this has nothing to do with light fixtures, you're thinking.  I know!

Rain was forecast so I had written off yard work for the weekend.  I decided I should clean the house, which meant I ran around doing anything I could to avoid vacuuming.  I recently ran across a fixture I bought at Ikea last summer in the basement.  I have no idea where I was planning on putting it.  Why not put it in the bedroom?  Not that the existing fixture wasn't awesome:

The glass part that should hide the bulb was missing, so I had a bare bulb hanging from a very dirty ceiling fan that wasn't properly anchored so it heaved and chugged if you tried to use it.

That's just a little bit better, right?  WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS A MILLION YEARS AGO?