Persicaria blackfield | Mom in the Garden

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

Persicaria blackfield and rudbeckia goldstrum in among birch trees

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!

Collage of flowers: Lilies, sunflowers and a single gladiolus

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.

arrangement of flowers with sunflowers, dahlias and artichokes

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? 🙂

Hi there! Welcome to my blog where I like to talk about all things gardening. 🙂 I was scrolling back through photos the other day when I came across two pictures that you’ll see today. One is of my seed packet for Marina di Chioggia squash. This is definitely the mystery squash from last week – despite the fact that my online search of this squash doesn’t fully align with the seed packet image.

The other picture that caught my attention is of our garden from this past May. It was completely bare! So of course I had to seek out a current picture. (My feature image at the top of the page is one.) The garden looks so full now! The hosta filled out, and the sunflowers of course, along with the plants growing on the arch (sweet pea and squash), the pumpkin bed, not to mention the pear tree, blueberries and strawberries. But in addition to those, there are the perennial plants that we added this year: dwarf Little Lime hydrangeas, Lavender and Rosemary, all along the borders. The perennials have come along really well in one season, and I like the way that they frame the garden. It truly is amazing, though, how quickly everything changes!

Speaking of changes, there is definitely a fall feel to the garden, now. The helenium are on their second flush of flowers (worth deadheading the old ones!) and look very pretty with the Incrediball hydrangea as a backdrop.

The Rudbeckia (black-eyed-Susan) and Persicaria blooming under the birch trees also signals the shift to fall.

The dahlias are finally picking up the pace of flowering. You may remember that the ones that were planted in the ground this spring were eaten by something. I’m talking decimated! So it has taken this long for them to recover, grow and now produce blooms. But it is worth the wait, given the beautiful flowers I’m getting now. The dahlias in containers are a lot more work, mostly ensuring that they have enough water. But they did start flowering much faster, having not been attacked by the mystery bug. I do plan to plant them out in the ground next spring, though.

I’m joining The Propagator and his ‘Six on Saturday’ meme again this week.

Enjoy the tour!

A before and after picture of the garden looking at the sunflower bed

A before and after picture of the garden looking at the Pumpkin bed

1 – The ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures! The clouds are the only things that seem to have stayed the same. The bottom pictures aren’t completely equal because the raspberries have grown so tall that if I stood in front of them, none of the rest of the garden would be visible. Also, in the same bottom pictures, we started with garlic in the left raised bed, and ended with sunflowers. It is fun tracking the growth of everything. 🙂

Rudbeckia and Persicaria under birch trees

2 – The birch tree bed. I’m delighted with how the rudbeckia and persicaria have filled out, especially since I haven’t really given them a lot of room. I might remove some of the bearded iris to give them more space – I’m still deciding on that.

3 – Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’. You might remember that I moved these three plants from two different locations in the yard this year. They are so much happier here and have provided a lovely splash of color for a nice length of time. I also used supports for them, which kept them upright and looking lovely. I deadheaded these plants a couple of weeks ago and they are now blooming again. The red is very pretty with the white Incrediball hydrangeas. It would be even nicer with the purple agapanthus that is planted in the middle of this bed, but they decided they weren’t interested in blooming this year. Better luck next year!

4 – Marina Di Chioggia seed packet. The picture on this seed packet isn’t like the images I get when I Google it. This is most likely the mystery squash from last week’s post. Glad I was able to figure that out (eventually).

arrangement with dahlias and Japanese anemone

5 & 6 – Dahlias! We have dinner plate dahlia Cafe au Lait (a creamy white), cactus dahlia Coffee at midnight (a deep red), and pompon or ball dahlia Tam Tam (also a deep red). In the top picture there is a pink dahlia that I only have as ‘Maxi’. All of them are just so pretty! I am already thinking about what colors and varieties to add for next year!

I hope you’ve transitioned nicely into the next season! I’m really liking these fall flowers, so I’m not too upset about the passing of summer. What about you? Do you prefer summer or fall flowers? 🙂

Take care!

In Peace,
Dana

Mom in the Garden

Enjoying life. In Ireland. With my family.

Tag Archives: Persicaria blackfield

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