Hi there! Well the good news is that summer isn’t over yet. 🙂 And honestly, there were even some decent spells of weather this past week. Just not last night, or this morning! What a storm that passed through our area! Our pear tree did not fare well, unfortunately. We’ll see if it is save-able. But most of the rest of the garden seemed to do O.K. (gladioli aside).
There are still lots of sunflowers blooming. And now they are joined by rudbeckia Goldstrum and persicaria Blackfield. There are still some dahlia that haven’t bloomed yet. I’m waiting … patiently. I cut a few Sweet Pea bouquets this week that were quite large – they are blooming like crazy! And I made another arrangement, this one with a ‘copper toned’ color theme. I added something more unusual to it too, just for fun!
I’ll be joining Garden Ruminations for the Six on Saturday meme. It’s fun to see what’s blooming in gardens around the world!
I hope you’ll enjoy the tour.
In Peace,
Dana
1 & 2 – Persicaria Blackfield and Rudbeckia Goldstrum. These beauties are in among my five birch trees. This little garden bed has hellebores in bloom in the winter, bearded iris in early summer and now these two colorful plants for late summer and early fall. I’m happy with how it changes through the seasons with minimal work from me!
3, 4 & 5 – Clockwise from top right: Lotus Dream lilies, sunflowers, gladiolus (unknown variety). It was a rough start for the lilies since the lily beetle got ahead of me (I eventually got rid of all of those pesky beetles!) but the lilies are still flowering and not looking too badly. More importantly, they are smelling beautifully! I continue to cut the sunflowers and they continue to bloom. There are always bees around, and now butterflies, too. The Gladiolus is a beautiful vibrant red! I had to cut this today as it was knocked in the storm. It currently has flowers open going all the way to the top (this picture was from a number of days ago). It is truly fabulous.
6 – Floral arrangement. I used a glass ice bucket for his week’s arrangement, with marbles to help stabilize the flowers. I started with a bunch of sunflowers, some chocolate colored, some rust colored and some golden. Then I stuffed the arrangement with as many copper colored dahlias as I could fit! The floppy, tall, yellow sunflowers were added next. It was at this point that I decided I wanted to bring in a different color. I took a quick walk around the garden when I noticed the globe artichokes and that was it – decision made. Purple would be the final color! And when you cut them just as the flower turns purple, they will actually hold that color even as the artichoke dries out (for those of you who like to work with dried flowers).
Thank you so much for visiting! I appreciate your taking the time to stop by. Any favorite flower? 🙂
Mom in the Garden 
I am really enjoying seeing everyone’s Rudbeckia this year.
They are such a cheerful flower! 🙂
Love those summery floral arrangements! ❤ I just can't get enough of your beautiful Rudbeckias. Its something we straggle to grow here, so I enjoy them form afar instead!
Thank you, Sarah. I really enjoy creating summer flower arrangements. Oh wow, I’m surprised to hear that about Rudbeckias in your area. What a shame. I love them because they are so easy!
Rudbeckia is also on my list of native plants I still “need” for my garden – what was it Jim said about plant addiction?
Oh I love having all different kinds of plants in the garden! (what addiction???) I’m definitely feeling the pinch of weeding, though, with every new bed created to add new plants! 🙂
Haha – I plants everything so close together that the weeds don’t have much chance! In fact, most of my “weeds” are native reseeds, with Kale, Agastache and Echinacea among the big reseeders. I also let my lettuce go to seed in the garden, so come spring my weeds will be edible lettuce that will need to be harvested when it grows where I want something else planted. Thick mulch and close spacing help a lot with the weeding issue.
A true master gardener!
Your garden is beyond beautiful! I think I could look at your photos all the day long! 🤍🌺
Ah Kymber, you are too kind! Thank you very much, I’m so glad you like it. I thoroughly enjoy creating and working in my garden. 🙂 🙂
You are really talented! 🙂
Those fat little sunflowers are adorable 😀 And as always, I love seeing rudbeckias popping up everywhere.
Just had a thought, since I was talking about seed saving with another SoSer… would you happen to live in the part of Ireland that’s still in the EU and want to do a seed swap for fun?
Hi Angela, yes, I live in the Republic of Ireland (part of EU). The only problem is that I’m dreadful at saving seeds! I’ll have to have a look and see what I could do. Thanks for thinking of me!
I’ve been very here or there about saving them in the past as well, so this is my first year making a concerted effort with a variety of plants and now I’m trying to keep the enthusiasm going by trading. The main problem is finding people with different things to swap with! I’ll return with a list of what I managed to get this winter and see how it goes 🙂