Hey Y’all!
As National Pollinator week comes to an end I am thrilled that some of my pollinator flowers have started to bloom. I feel we are bit behind this year but I have seen a few bumble bees out and about. I also have had one or two hummingbirds stop by.
Mid July is really when we start to see the most color and the most pollinator activity. My goal was to plant flowers that will bloom as early as June well into September. This will give us the maximum color and provide our pollinator friends opportunity to work their magic.
For the last two weeks I have wanted to post an update on the flower beds and the seeds we planted this yer. However every day that I attempted to snap some photos it was raining. Today is no exception. I woke around 5:30 to the start of some pretty aggressive rain drops. It is now close to 10:30 and it still is coming down. We have sections of lawn that do not get a lot of shade and were starting to look a bit dry even with daily watering so I am not complaining about the rain.
We had a slow start to getting warm even after our last frost so I feel compared to last years flowers are growing slowly and are a bit on the shorter side. Especially the Cone Flowers in the front.
I did notice a few Cosmos buds today when I did my walk around. I am exited to see them open.
This year I planted Cosmos Lemonade – a real pretty light yellow. I think they next to some of the purples and pinks of other plants will be a nice contrast. I was introduced to Cosmos last year when I planted a wild flower mix and in it was a variety of Pink Cosmos. They are for sure in my top 10 for the show they put on well into late September.
As I shared I feel we had a slow start to the warmer weather and this has affected three specific beds. The bed right in front of our picture window was a wash of blooms last year and this year there is distinctly bare space sort of center were nothing seems to be growing. This bed was filled with Bee Balm last year and now the Evening Primrose seems to be more dominate and the Coneflowers are very very short compared to the length we had last year.
One of the south beds as a small section where nothing took and so does one of the north beds. Everything else around it while shorter than last year is very vivid and green and getting ready to bud. Perhaps as the season progress they might fill in?
The Evening Primrose I planted has filled in and is growing as expected. In the first year they are not known to produce blooms so am looking forward to next years bright yellow patch and beside it the wild flower bed is bursting with a variety of green leaves ready to produce an array of colorful blooms.
The one bed I am thrilled took so well is the old fire bit turned wild flower patch. This was a whim of a project that has turned into one of my favorite features. To be able to see all this color out the kitchen window almost makes me not mind washing the dishes.
We did add an area to our planting list that I do not think I spoke about before….maybe I did…. I will have to go back and check. But anyway behind our back fence we have a some yard that flows into the easement for the power company so they can get to the back electric pole. It is a bear to mow and from the street can be really ugly. It gets partial shade so I scattered a wildflower mixture of seeds that does well with Partial Shade. I purchased this from American Meadows the same place I purchased most of my flower seeds from. I will be purchasing more from them for a few fall projects.
Be on the look out for more updates as the blooms start to flower and the color show starts.
Thank you for visiting.
Jess