“A good garden may have some weeds.” ~Thomas Fuller
Some weeds! SOME WEEDS! Geesh, I am chock full as you will see in my garden review post in a couple of weeks. I am uncovering my gardens bit by bit and it has been wonderful. Of course many of the weeds have lovely flowers, and then there are the volunteer flower seedlings that are now huge.
And here in Central NY, what better season than summer to be treated to multiple blooms. All these blooms come from the Sidewalk Gardens. Since I have cleared the weeds, I can now see more of the plants and flowers. And some of the blooms in these vases are volunteers that are being moved or pulled.
This first small vase actually has all volunteers from the Sidewalk Garden. Scabiosa ochroleuca or Yellow Scabiosa is growing all over, and even when I pull it, it continues to float over the garden. I love this plant. Campanula rapunculoides or Ladybells grow on one side of the garden, and moves a bit if I don’t control them. I learned in my old garden to be wary of this plant as it can be very invasive. So I have it in a somewhat sunny dry spot. There is some Phlox paniculata ‘Junior Dance’ volunteering. And I included a few dwarf Echinacea. I put in one small plant a few years ago, and it has cross-bred and now I have many varieties of purple Echinacea all dwarf. And the clump keeps growing and sending out volunteers.
The next vase is a celebration, and such a treat for me. For two years now my ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea did not bloom. Weather in winter and late spring freezes, almost killed these two bushes, and I was expecting to replace them. I even went so far as to research what bushes I would use as replacements, and reserved them for the fall. Then suddenly, the shrubs bloomed, and bloomed and bloomed. And they are still growing and blooming.
This container is wooden so I placed a rectangular glass vase inside of it. And I like the effect of the blooms just spilling out of the wooden vase.
You can see the huge blooms are mostly pink as our soil is alkaline. But one of the shrubs does sport a bit of blue and purple, and grows right next to the other shrub with only pink blooms. I added Yellow Scabiosa to this vase too. The other plant I added has light purple tiny blooms almost like oregano flowers, but with a mint fragrance. I cannot find the name of this plant so if you know it let me know!
I am joining in with a few memes this week as I prepare these vases: Cathy@Rambling in the Garden for her wonderful meme, In a Vase on Monday, Today’s Flowers hosted by Denise@An English Girl Rambles and Judith@Lavender Cottage who hosts Mosaic Monday.
RECIPE
As we are in high summer, and the hot weather is here to stay, I thought I would share with you a wonderful recipe that is healthy, tasty and so refreshing. I call it Fruit and Herb Infused Water.
This refreshing water using fresh fruit and herbs so there is no artificial anything, or sugar as it is not needed.
The recipe came to me via Facebook, and I have adapted it a bit here and there. Don’t you love the jug. We found it in our local grocery store.
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Well I hope you enjoyed my summer treats. What have you been enjoying this summer?
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Next up on the blog:
Wednesday, I will have my Simply The Best Natives post just in time for Wildflower Wednesday and Garden Blogger Foliage Day. And Monday, I will have another vase with an update on my Veg Garden.
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