The beginning of this month was my annual ‘Girls Trip’ with Amy Billharz and Pinto. We escape the fireworks each July 4th and this year we went camping in the Cascades. It was a lovely way to rejuvenate! We ate lots of delicious food!
As July comes to a close, the flower garden has really exploded into summer flowers. The zinnias, beebalm, lavender, and purple queen anne’s lace are prolific at the moment; as well as the vibrant calendula, which I’ve already decided I won’t grow next year. It’s a lovely flower but not long lasting enough in a vase for my taste.
The cosmos and sunflowers are starting to put on buds and I’m waiting for them to explode into color. Honestly, they aren’t in the best bed for their sunlight needs. My suspicion is they would’ve bloomed much earlier along the fence. Next year, I’ll be able to plan the bed layout better since I’m more in tune with how much daylight each area is getting now.
To my utter delight, the china asters are starting to bloom! I love their many elegant curls. I already have plans to try and overwinter a few of them in low caterpillar tunnels to get an earlier start on blooms next year.
The list of plants I intend to overwinter continues to grow. Feverfew varieties, Magic Lime and Vegmo Sunny Ball, are now on there too! I’m working out what areas of the beds can be covered and kept warm, potentially resulting in more flowers earlier in the season.
Surprisingly, I’m also enjoying the Star Child dahlia very much. I’m not a huge fan of typical pom and dinner plate category dahlias so I planted some of the anemone variety. I may add one more for next year, but it’s a toss-up between Yellow Bird and Platinum Blonde at the moment. Let me know in the comments below your preference!
Seeds started this month include more stock flowers (will they bloom before the frost gets them? We’ll see!), Black Barlow columbine, white Echinacea, and two more varieties of violas. All of these are hardy and should be fine without cover if given a few weeks in the soil to establish before our typical November frost.
This month also saw my first market of the year. I vended the annual Seattle Audubon Society Art Fair and took along mini bouquets to sell. They did well! I had such fun handing little bouquets over to happy people and telling them about each flower.
I’ll end by mentioning that I’m swimming in flowers! If you want a weekly or bi-weekly delivery of mini bouquets this summer, email me!