Many spring flowers have decided it is time to take a nap until next April.
If it weren’t for the fact that summer bloomers were beginning to show their colors, I’d be very depressed. Like many of us, my spring garden began with bulb flowers like scillas, crocuses, daffodils and tulips of every sort.
In my May garden, fringed bleeding hearts and a goldheart bleeding heart showed their colors. I had epimediums, hellebores, bistort, troillus, Jacob’s ladder, fothergilla, quince, geum, primroses, fairy bells, forget-me-nots, tiarella, snow drops and summer snowflakes. Centaurea montana was blooming along with solomon’s seal, primulas, wood poppies, barren strawberry, and creeping phlox. Viburnams are blooming along with lilacs and red and yellow twig dogwoods.
Most of these are native plants which I chose because I want to benefit local birds, bees and butterflies.
Strolling through the garden is a delight in the spring. Now that it is June, my roses are just beginning to blossom. Roses used to have a short blooming season, but nowadays, hybridizers are giving us roses with a longer season, or a second flush.
Some people actually have no interest in roses, but there is no shortage of a variety of summer bloomers. June is a great month for irises, which are available in different sizes, forms, and colors. Beautiful shrubs like mountain laurel, rhododendrons and azaleas come into bloom. Honeysuckle, astilbe, columbine, coreopsis, campanula, agastache, and penstemon will also bloom.
As summer progresses, there will be asters, black eyed susans, gaillardia, bee balm and cone flowers in many shades and form. Growing a variety of plants that will attract pollinators and birds is very important to me. I was surprised to find that lavender is a pollinator plant that blooms in summer.
Many annuals that attract the birds and the bees bloom all summer and into the fall including zinnias, marigolds, calendula, cosmos, nasturtiums, and cleome (spider flower).
Many of these plants show themselves in many colors. To attract pollinators to the garden, we should think about the way bees see. The colors most appealing to bees are white, yellow and blue — in their various shades. I will think of that as I choose from the colors of my zinnias, marigolds, cosmos and nasturtiums.
The plants in an herb garden, thyme, basil, oregano, sage, borage and mint bloom in blue, attract bees and keep cooks happy.
Summer is a longer garden season than spring. Plants that bloom in the fall may begin their term in August, and keep us happy until frost. Chysanthemums might head the list. Football games and mums on lapels. Not this year, of course. No games. Even so, other types of mums can delight. There are spoon and quill mums that have unusual petals, little button mums, and cushion mums which are the mounding mums that appear at supermarket doors in the fall.
My favorite chrysanthemum is the so called Sheffield daisy. The daisy-like petals are a lovely pink with a yellow center. They tend to sprawl and are low, but they start their glorious bloom in September and continue until a hard frost. I love this plant which blooms when almost everything else is giving up. It is a good spreader and I usually have divisions to give away.
Boltonia is an amazing plant, growing tall and stately. It brings a profusion of small white daisy blossoms on sturdy four to five foot stems well through October.
Culver’s root is even taller than boltonia. It is at least five feet tall with candelabra-like spikes of white flowers.
Of course, there are asters that also bloom through the fall. There are tall asters like the white wood aster with tiny white daisy-like blossoms, the three foot brilliant pink Alma Potchke, and Wood’s Blue which is only a foot tall, but can carpet an area, or be kept in check. There are many asters to take us through the fall.
There was no garden when we moved to Greenfield five years ago. But I had read and was inspired by “Bringing Nature Home,” written by Douglas W. Tallamy, a professor at the University of Delaware. He has been teaching for years how insects interact with plants and how those interactions affect the world around us. He has given us statistics about the losses of insects, birds and what it means for us.
Recently, I read that if 70 percent of our garden plants, from trees to annuals, were native plants our birds, bees and butterflies would be supported. We would get to understand the interconnectedness of all creatures.
Tallamy has written two other fascinating books: “The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty” and “Biodiversity in the Home Landscape with Rick Darke,” and his new book “Nature’s Best Hope: a New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard.” I want beautiful flowers in my garden, and I also want to be a conservationist.
Tallamy has a website, bringingnaturehome.net, with information about the native plants that are suitable to our part of the world.
Pat Leuchtman has been writing and gardening in Heath at End of the Road Farm since 1980. She now lives in Greenfield. Readers can leave comments at her website: commonweeder.com.