The COTTAGE GARDEN in AUGUST Is Full of SURPRISES — Ep. 385

I find it hard to plant a new garden all at once. Case in point, two years ago I had quite a show of tulips along this new garden border, but once June rolled around there wasn't much happening here. So little by little I've been adding plants that can carry the garden through the seasons. Last fall I added summer to fall blooming perennials like acalia and coreopsis, and this spring I tucked in some tender bulbs like dahlias and gladioli to really keep the show going through summer and into fall. So let's take a look at how it's coming along. Look how tall this has gotten, isn't this crazy? And then we have this sunbergia right here too, two different kinds, I think a darker yellow and a light yellow. I wanted to show you some of the bulbs that have come up this year, kind of that July-August time when it's really hard to get all the plants blooming. Last year after the tulips were here I had no plants blooming, so we're kind of in that mid-season now to just show you what's blooming. And luckily I have some perennials, but look at the dahlias that have come up. Now this was supposed to be a single flower, so it'll look a little more like this, but you can see that some have way more petals and that's on the same plant. And I had one that was blooming right over here that has finished blooming. It gets quite hot over here, this is east and then south, and then of course the house warms it up, so these were some of the first to really emerge. Also the liatris, so this is the liatris spicata that I've planted in here, both the white and the purple kind. And then this looks like the cylindraceae, the same genus but a different species altogether. I have to point this out, these are really beautiful, these little sweet peas. It's so precious, this is my first time growing them in a planter pot and it seems to have done a lot better than getting lost in the sea of things out in the regular gardens, so I'll probably do that for a second year. But of course the real standouts right now, which are a bit past peak bloom of the liatris spicata. You can see that they start their flowers from the top down, so these are already spent, they're getting into the seed head territory, and then you can see all the way down that it's flowering. And these are such pollinator magnets, when it gets a little warmer in the afternoon then you're going to see quite a bit more butterflies here. We've seen a lot of monarchs and swallowtails. And then this is past peak bloom, but this is another corm that is quite lovely that we've planted in. This is our crocosmia lucifer, and that red and that purple with the white gora I think looks really nice. And then what's going to take over for the liatris once this is past bloom is some of our asters that are going to come in here that are nice, quite purple. But the liatris spicata are the first to bloom. Another corm that blooms much later in the season is this one, which is one of our threatened species of liatris. This is liatris scariosa variation newlandii. And you can see that it has yet to bloom. I have, well I actually have one in there that looks like it's flattened. It looks like it's a crested kind in there. I'll have to get a close-up shot of that, which is really interesting because normally it has a flat top. I'll show you, these two are starting to bloom. So these are some of the earlier bloomers, and then they're starting to push out some inflorescences down below. But these are a really amazing plant for our butterflies. So the fact that I planted these bulbs or tubers, or in this case they're corms, and they're coming up now during like peak pollinator season, it's absolutely great. Now this is another type of liatris, a much more diminutive kind. And this is liatris microcephala, meaning small-headed liatris. And I think this is just darling. This bed is a bit smaller, shorter to the ground. I'm trying to keep it that way. You may see, of course, like the sunflowers that have been planted in. That is by the doing of the chippies, the chipmunks, not by me. And then the dahlias are just starting to come up here. These are shorter dahlias. You can see I tried to get single-headed dahlias as much as possible so that I could attract the pollinators. That was the goal. We'll swing back here to this garden. And you can see that all my veronicastrums and things are kind of spent. But here is another liatris scariosa variation, landii, that has just started to put out a beautiful flower head. And again, here are some of those smaller kinds. Maybe this is cylindraceae. And another bulb that we've planted, and they're really hard to keep upright because they're so heavy, is gladioli. This was by far one of my favorite gladiolus colors of the season, a dusty mauve shade appropriately called gladiolus smoky. That color worked well with the lavender and amethyst delphiniums and what remains of the heathered colored culver's roots and the newly emerging mauveen liatris. On the edge, so every two weeks I would come out here and plant more bulbs. So they should bloom from now up until frost. And you could see some of those beautiful gladioli. I did try to push them back towards the deer fence so they had something to lean up against too. I think I was successful in some cases like this and like that, but some have been planted a little bit further out and they'll probably topple over. I really love that red color. Look at that. It's like a burgundy red wine color. This is at the point where it, once they start to bloom a little bit, you could cut it off and it'll make a great cut flower. Now you could see some over here that I could maybe push up against the fence a bit more. They're starting to topple over. It's a common issue with gladioli. Look at this liatris. It's just phenomenal and that's just going to continue to spread. I primarily planted spicata in here, so it's principally spicata. This one is an incredibly dark variety. It's got some white splotches in there as well. Beautiful color, which is what I was aiming for in this garden. This one turned out to be a bit pinker. You know, it's kind of interesting. I've got some snails on there as well. I've got to get my ducks out on these, but sometimes those pink ones are sold as red. It depends on kind of the light that they get. Look at this color and then compare this to this coreopsis red satin. Love that red. This one's a bit too pale for my liking, but it's a nice small gladioli. It's not too top-heavy. Again, here's a close-up of that red satin coreopsis. This has much more flowers over here. You can see the color tone of that. That's kind of the color tone that I was aiming to go for for some of the gladioli. The purples and the reds is what I was going for, and then this one, hit and miss, is kind of like pink and splotchy. Not what I was going for. So these might be good cut flowers. You know, maybe cut them off and put that in a vase. There's a few dahlias that are just starting to stick up their heads, like right here, and I would imagine that they're going to bloom in late August, early September. Here's another one with a darker leaf, and they'll be able to pick up where some of these plants are leaving off, which is great. This is exactly what I wanted to happen, is just have way more flowers throughout the season up until frost, and I didn't have that last year because these gardens were relatively new. They're about almost two years old now, I would say. So this is two years of growth. We had quite a lot of rain, so I think some of them are kind of flattened, but for the most part, I think we've done a decent job here, and the pollinators have been loving it. What's really nice about the liatris is that you could buy it as a corm, and it's a perennial. It'll come back, and it will spread. So I think that's a really good investment. Here in zone five or six, I would have to collect my gladiolas. I would have to collect the dahlias if I want them to return because it's just too cold here. Another one that will come back and that will perennialize, and it's part of the reason why I've planted it in this bed, is the crocosmia, which were, again, past crocosmia bloom, but these will come back year over year, which is interesting because it's quite tropical, but I think in the future, I'll likely invest more in different species of liatris because it does come back year over year, and it gives such a wonderful bloom from late July into end of September, even early October, depending on the species. I would say that liatris scariosa variation newlandii is the latest species to bloom. Ligual stylus is also kind of maybe the second latest, and it really corresponds with the monarch butterfly migration. So those are really important plants to have planted in the garden if you want to provide pollinator resources for the monarchs on their way back home. What mid-season blooms and bulbs are you loving in your garden right now? Share them in the comments below. And don't forget, it's time to purchase bulbs for the fall garden. If you wait too long, your favorites may be sold out, and you'll have to wait until next year. In the meantime, if you want more inspiration and education on flower bulbs, you could head over to flowerbulb.eu. We'll see you in the next video.