Anthology of August Blooms

 

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“The original Greek meaning of the word anthology is a collection or gathering of flowers in bloom.”  ~Jane Garmey

 

 

Every month, garden bloggers around the globe put together an anthology of their current blooms for what is called Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.  Carol@May Dreams Gardens hosts this meme where we gladly and proudly parade our blooms for all to see.  This month is no exception as we are smack in the middle of summer here in Central New York.

unnamedAnd with all the rain and warm temps, my blooms are  happily still blooming longer than usual.  Even those that are fading make a beautiful statement in the garden or vase.  

I have included a few collages so I could link in with Judith@Lavender Cottage.  Judith is now hosting Mosaic Monday.  And I am finally joining in with Brooke@Creative Country Mom for her Tuesday Garden Party where Brooke joins 5 other bloggers and shares the garden link love.  

  

 

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Echinaceas still continue to bloom.  I will keep them up all winter as the birds love the seeds.  Right now the pollinators, butterflies and hummers are partaking of these sweet native flowers.   Of course I have a few cultivars.  I especially love those in the Sky series and white cultivars.

 

 

   

DSCN1730The native rudbeckias are blooming everywhere.  These beauties self seed and make gorgeous clumps for critters and gardeners to delight in.  

 

 

  

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I have many varieties growing in the meadow and gardens too.  

 

 

 

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Many roses are still blooming, but they did get a late start.  I wonder if they will still be blooming in fall.  I hope so.

 

 

 

DSCN0410My Phlox paniculata is not in big clumps this year but it has seeded around.  I have some native pink and purple that are a delight.

 

 

 

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This is the P. paniculata cultivar, “Junior Dance’  that grows to about two feet.  The voles destroyed large clumps in the front garden, but I have some growing beautifully under my clethra bush.

 

 

 

DSCN1737And speaking of the Clethra alnifolia bush, it has finally bloomed.  It is one of the highlights of the summer to see this bush covered in these incredibly sweet-smelling blooms.  Also called Summersweet, this is cultivar ‘Ruby Spice’.

 

 

 

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Only a small number of my native Liatris spicata bloomed this year.  I hope the others come back, but I am happy to see those that did bloom.

 

 

 

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And the sunflowers are just beginning to bloom.  This is one of the volunteers in the mailbox garden.

 

 

 

I am also highlighting the wonderful foliage that is catching my eye now.  I am linking in with Pam@Digging for her Foliage Follow Up on the 16th, and Christina@Creating my own garden of the Hesperides for her Garden Bloggers Foliage Day on the 22nd. 

 

 

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The basil is growing like mad.  This Cinnamon basil.

 

 

 

DSCN1989Some of my common milkweed was pulled up prematurely, and it has grown back so I have new milkweed blooming.  I love the sun lighting up the foliage. 

 

 

 

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These are the leaves of my new 4 ft American linden tree.  I love the foliage and the seedheads after it flowers.   

 

 

 

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My native hardy hibiscus is just about to bloom, but the purple-red foliage of cultivar ‘Kopper King’ is the most stunning in the sun.

 

 

 

In A Vase On Monday

 

Cathy@Rambling in the Garden has a fun way to showcase your cut flowers called, In a Vase on Monday.  I am participating as I use blooms from my garden.  You can see a few of the blooms I used in the pictures above.  I am also linking in with Today’s Flowers hosted by Denise@An English Girl Rambles. 

 

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You can see I had a few vases I wanted to fill, and I settled on two….the round and green vases.  For the green vase, I wanted to feature this lovely gladiolus blooming, and knew it cried out for a vase with goldenrod, pink phlox, anise hyssop and purple Obedient plant.

And the blooming sunflowers needed to fill a vase too.  I wanted to challenge myself with the round vase using only flowers and no added foliage.  Everything rests on the goldenrod that is the base for this vase.  Three ‘Lemon Queen’ sunflowers rise above the goldenrod with Queen Anne’s Lace, purple Obedient plant and purple Phlox paniculataLaura‘ to add some subtle accents.

 

 

What lovely blooms are showing up in your garden now?  What’s your favorite flower to display in a vase? 

 

 

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“To pick a flower is so much more satisfying than just observing it, or photographing it …  So in later years, I have grown in my garden as many flowers as possible for children to pick.”  

 –  Anne Scott-James      

 

 

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Visit my new blog: 

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I want to thank all the wonderful people who have been visiting my new blog, Living From Happiness.  It is a blog to celebrate life, lessons, change, challenges and creativity.

I post there every Thursday, and sometimes on Sunday with a creative post.  In August I am participating in a photo challenge and posting some of my pics on Sundays.

I do hope you will join me there.  

 

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Next up on the blog:  Wednesday I will have another Garden Book Review post.  I am delaying my midsummer veg garden report as it is sparse given the late start to my garden.  And next Monday I’ll have another vase of flowers from my garden.

I am linking in with Michelle@Rambling Woods for her Nature Notes meme.  It is a great way to see what is happening in nature around the world every Tuesday.

I am also joining in I Heart Macro with Laura@Shine The Divine that happens every Saturday.

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All original content is copyrighted and the sole property of Donna Donabella @ Gardens Eye View, 2010-2014.  Any reprints or use of content or photos is by permission only.

 

 

 

78 Replies to “Anthology of August Blooms”

  1. Your blog gets more and more beautiful, Donna, reflecting the loveliness of your garden. I envy your varieties of echinacea, as I’m starting over with just one, since the aster yellows infection. My tiny clethra isn’t blooming. I wonder if I have it in the wrong spot — is yours in full sun? Oh, you made such pretty bouquets to brig into the house. P. x

    1. So nice of you to say so Pam. I am not showing any of the wild weedy shots 🙂 I have a bit of asters yellow but I am controlling it without having to rip it all out.

      My clethra is next to the house in an eastern exposure so it gets sun morning and early afternoon. Then it is shaded in later afternoon. It also has moist well-drained soil. It loves where it is and has grown to 5ft tall and 4 feet wide just exploding with heady blooms. I have not had luck in other spots but I am still trying to add some more around the garden. They like lots of room too and don’t like to be too crowded when they are first growing.

      Glad you enjoyed the bouquets…I had lots of fun making them.

  2. Your garden is a feast for the eyes Donna, so many natives that have pretty flowers. Like Pam above, my clethra has never bloomed and I have the same variety as you. I notice it is reaching towards the sun so perhaps I need to relocate it.
    It’s not hard to pick up on your passion for gardening.
    Thanks for linking to Mosaic Monday.

    1. Glad you enjoyed the garden Judith. Clethra do like a bit more sun. Mine is in morning and early afternoon sun with moist well-drained soil and is not crowded by too many other plants. I bet if you move it to where it gets a wee more sun it will reward you! 🙂

  3. Beautiful photos of your flowers, Donna. I do love your clethra bush. Something I might have to put on my list to purchase. I like your different varieties of rudbeckia, too. I have the variety in my garden that’s pretty aggressive. I guess that’s ok in some spots though.

    1. Thanks Sue! Yes the rudbeckia can certainly take over and I let it in certain spots and then in others I rip it out. Clethra is a rewarding bush if you can find the right spot for it. It takes a couple of years to grow in but boy is it worth the wait.

  4. Your photos always make me smile Donna. So many beautiful flowers full of sunlight. Always enjoyable and always a great to see. Happy day to you 🙂

  5. The mosaics look really effective, Donna – are they produced within WordPress? And I admire your organisation in linking with all these memes – there are so may interesting blogs and memes and it takes time to keep up with favourites, but you have found a good compromise here. I particularly liked the sunflower vase which shows that you contrasting colours can be really successful – I wouldn’t have thought of using the subtle accents of the pink phlox with yellow, but it really works! Thanks for opening my eyes a bit wider still! 🙂

    1. No Cathy these are not in WordPress. I use a Mac application called Turbo Collage-Collage Creator that you can get in the Mac store. I like how it works…so easy. I am glad you enjoyed the vases. I really liked creating them this week especially when the sunflowers started blooming.

    1. Thanks Gail…..enjoy your week as well. Going to cool down this week so maybe I can get out in the garden again finally!

    1. Yes you do have to have some tough flowers there Jacqueline. Here they have to tough it out through harsh winters and spring floods. Glad you enjoyed the flowers blooming here.

  6. You certainly have a lot in bloom this August, Donna. I love the peach toned Echinacea and that Summersweet! In contrast my own garden seems mostly bloomed out – or perhaps it’s just taking a pause pending the return of cooler weather. Your Monday vases look lovely – the sunflowers make me wish mine were still blooming.

    1. So glad you liked the vases and blooms here Kris. Our season is so short it blooms until mid fall and then goes to sleep tired and ready to renew again in spring!

  7. Donna, I love your collages. They are a great way to showcase your blooms for us. i also love your bouquets! The goldenrod makes a wonderful base for the sunflowers, and the round vase with the gladiolus is also very pretty. Well done!

    1. I figure I will have enough blooms until early fall Deb, but then it will be interesting making vases with fewer choices, and of course winter will mean no more vases here. But I am having a ball for now. And I am glad others are enjoying the vases and collages.

  8. I have just popped over via Rambling In The Garden to see your flowers for In A Vase On Monday. You have made two stunning vases and I have really enjoyed looking through your August blooms as well!

  9. Donna, your vase looks great. Love your gladiolus. My Liatris spicata didn’t bloom at all this year. Your Obedient plant is so pretty. I have some that want to take over so have been very ruthless in pulling them out this year, but I think the flowers are so wonderful.

    1. Susie I figure if I am pulling it out, then I will put it in a vase which is how Obedient and goldenrod ended up in mine. So glad you enjoyed the vases.

  10. You really have much in bloom, a wonderful selection of Echinaceas. It has been a pretty good year here in NY with the weather, making garden blooms look better and last longer. I like your garden arrangements. I do the same each week, always bringing the flowers indoors too.

    1. Indeed it has been a great summer for flowers blooming. I have wanted to bring in blooms and arrange them but just didn’t…this meme gave me a good push and I am just loving it. Glad you liked the arrangements Donna.

  11. Oh I didn’t know there were pretty cultivars are the coneflowers… I will have to look at that. Hard to believe that summer is going so fast…. Michelle

    1. Some of the cultivars perform better than others but yes they do have some lovely cultivars. I know I am holding on to every summer day…cooling off for a few days again with rain.

  12. Wonderful photos, Donna!

    That Clethra is spectacular.

    I see from your responses to other comments that you have some of this mythical “moist well-drained soil” that I read about in gardening books. Alas, all I have is clay that alternates between sodden and baked, ergo I don’t think Clethra would be all that happy here.

    Your volunteer sunflower is rocking too. Don’t you just love volunteers (said the gardener from the Volunteer State) 🙂

    1. Thanks Aaron. I do have the mythical soil up against the north facing side of the house. Clethra is forgiving as long as it has enough sun. But it does like moist soil and it can be wet moist in clay to sandy soil. But it doesn’t do well in dry shadier conditions.

      I do indeed love my volunteers. They have been filling in all over the garden this year. 🙂

  13. What a lovely variety of blooms! You start with ones that are familiar, but then I see: Clethra alnifolia bush – love that one. My basil aren’t that big, but perhaps it’s because I planted them next to my cucumber plants, and those are growing large and happy this summer.

  14. Thanks Donna for leaving a message, it is always good to hear from someone new!
    What beautiful flowers you have, the photos of the Echinacae are wonderful and the vase of flowers so pretty.
    I think my garden is having a rest after all the heat that we had for so long, very different from what we have usually in the UK.

    1. Thank you Pauline for visiting. Glad you enjoyed the flowers here. I have read on a few blogs about the heat there. Our summer has been up and down with rain and cool temps followed by heat and dry conditions. But the rain and cooler temps have kept those flowers blooming here for unusually long periods.

      I enjoyed your blog Pauline and subscribed to it. I look forward to reading more about your garden.

  15. Hi Donna, you have created such a lovely sunny vase – pure bliss! I’d love to have that on my desk…would make work a lot more fun!! I love your echinaceas and rudbeckias – nice to present them as a collage. Summer has been pretty damp here too. I’m glad one way as I don’t have to spend hours watering as I’d normally do at this time of year but some things (roses, tomatoes…) don’t appreciate too much rain. Cinnamon basil is my favourite 🙂

    1. Thank you so much Annette. I love looking at the vase this week. And I am glad you enjoyed the collages. I agree the tomatoes are not liking the constant rain here either. Leaves are yellowing. Hoping for some dry weather.

  16. I love your vases, what a great idea using sunflowers in little vases I would never have thought of that.
    Your collages are beautiful, what stunning echinaceas, I love them. Some of the newer hybrids just don’ t last in the garden here, which is such a shame.
    I grow the lovely cinnamon basil too. I find that and the small leaved Greek basil so pretty that I can’ t bear to use them.
    Oh, and the Clethra! Gorgeous, I must try that.

    1. Thank you so much Chloris. The sunflowers were my favorite vase this week. The collages were fun to create as well. I only have a few hybrids that do well. Many don’t though for me either. Cinnamon basil is a new favorite for me too. Love the look of it. Clethra is beautiful native flowering bush here and the smell is intoxicating too.

  17. As usual a great blog, jammed packed full of garden lovelies!
    The Clethra is a new one on me, I love the colours of the flower. Serious Echinacea envy here – I just wish they like my garden as much as they like yours. Unfortunately the slugs get to the new shoots and destroy them before they get a chance!

    1. Oh that is too bad about the slugs and the echinacea Angie. Clethra and echinacea are great natives for me and no slug damage which is odd. Glad you enjoyed the blooms.

  18. Love all those gorgeous blooms and the fresh green of the basil too! The sunflower in the vase is really pretty Donna – goes beautifully with the phlox too.

  19. I have seen several of these blooms in the garden here in Oregon the last week or so – and your pictures are spectacular (as usual). Thank you for the lovely walk down the garden path in August. I could feel the sunshine and imagine a soft evening breeze as I strolled.

    1. Oh so nice to have you visit Barbara and walk about the garden. It is raining today but the garden is relishing this refreshing change. Hoping the veg garden keeps rolling along as I have lots still just beginning.

  20. We had a linden tree at our former home (I planted it). They are nice trees. I enjoyed seeing your clethra, coneflowers, and rudbeckia. I have quite a few rudbeckias too. At one time, I felt that I had too much yellow in the garden and tried to re-balance it out by adding lots of phlox.

    1. I know what you mean…with rudbeckia, goldenrod and helianthus there is a lot of late summer yellow. Glad you enjoyed the blooms Beth!

  21. Your flowers are gorgeous, Donna, and so are your photos!! I love the cone flowers; I used to have purple cone flowers in my garden in Greensboro years ago. Phlox is another of my favorites, and your rose is exquisite. We have one single rose bush in our yard; it’s a David Austin “Gertrude Jekyll,” and we just love it. 🙂 You’ve done some lovely mosaics!

    Thanks for visiting me and have a great week! 🙂

    Denise

    1. So glad you enjoyed your visit Denise. I loved your wildflowers and your rose sounds lovely. Hope your weekend is fun filled!! 🙂

  22. Hello Donna, i’ve been absent for a while in blogging but i chase GBBD, haha! Your blooms are all beautiful but i love most the color and form of that first one. I also realized you have a new face and a new blogsite, wow, i will visit it later! I hope i can manage to post regularly again in my two sites as well.

    1. Andrea you have been missed. So happy to have you visit and I hope you like the new blog…it is not about gardening but about life. Stop by anytime!!

  23. Fabulous blooms!
    Every so often I discover a plant and suddenly end up with loads of them. At the moment it’s Echinacea. I love the smoky pink one at the top of your post. I’ve tried growing them from seed but have found, like Angie, that slugs rather like them too. The fight is on.

    1. Thanks Jessica! How awful that your slugs are feasting on these beauties. They are native plants here which may be why slugs don’t eat them in my garden. I love how they freely seed around. Keep up the fight!

  24. Donna did you see, huh? I have a Clethra! I saw the Ruby Spice just as I was leaving the nursery with Vanilla Spice in hand. I think the Vanilla will blend better with the Kopper King, the Turk Cap Lilies and The Rocket I have in the section of the garden where I plan to plant it. I am so excited! I must add to my collection of Rudbeckias – I think I lost my Giant Coneflowers to last Winter. You have such a nice collection.

    1. Kathy I did see your clethra 🙂 I have a white one in my white garden that finally bloomed a bit. I have to rework that garden as weeds have taken over. I have lots of rudbeckia volunteers that need a home. If you are in the area this late summer or fall you can take lots of plants home with you!! Or let me know what you see and I can send them to you!

  25. What beautiful blooms in your garden. I have just ordered seeds of echinacea and rudbeckia and can’t wait for them to make beautiful displays like yours. Thank you for visiting my blog.

    1. Judith thank you. You won’t have to wait long for these beauties to seed themselves and make great stands. But be ready to find them far from where you planted them as they love to really spread and create new stands. I really enjoyed your blog and will be following. 🙂

    1. How lovely to have you visit Danielle. I just popped over to your wonderful blog. Pam at her blog Digging has really taught me to appreciate foliage more especially since flowers will end here in late October and we will have no flowers again until late March.

  26. I’ve been wanting to add a pink Phlox paniculata to my garden. The clear pink of yours is lovely; I will have to look for ‘Junior Dance.’

    1. I love phlox for summer into fall and the pollinators and hummers love it too. Glad you liked my pink ‘Junior Dance’.

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