Gardening in Pennsylvania ~ GBBD July 2012

Lavender and purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) in the Driveway Garden for July

Welcome to Pennsylvania in July! It has been a hot dry summer here this year, as it has been in most of the US. My gardens have had very little supplementary watering this season. Everything was looking tired around the edges until we had a garden clean-up this past weekend.


Here are some of my tricks for making the summer garden look its best:

• Clip back shrubs in to order.
• Cut out yellow and brown foliage from border.
• Cut some perennials to the ground after their bloom (including daylilies (Hemerocallis)  and hardy geraniums.
• Deadhead or give hair cuts to other spent flowers & sub-shrubs (including lamb's ears, coneflower, daisies, lavender, and annuals, such as petunias.)
• Add colorful annuals and tropical foliage (cannas, elephant ears, grasses, etc) to carry the garden through the gap into fall.

Adding annuals will mean the need to for more watering. If you locate most of your annuals in a few concentrated areas, it will take less time and water to keep up with them. In locations where the water tables are dangerously low, you will need to use some water conservation tricks to keep your flowers growing (ex. like using dishpan water for your flowers when you are done).

Come take a walk around...

Full view of the Driveway Garden this July. It is much improved from last year.

One of my favorite combinations right now: Orange Tiger lilies (Lily Tigrinum Splendens) and the Drumstick allium (Allium sphaerocephalon).

View from the inside of the Driveway Garden. The Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) is finally taking off a bit.

A bee enjoying the tropical looking blooms of Rose of Sharon, a hardy hibiscus, in July.  They do really give everything a color lift at this time of the season!

Here are my freshly planted annuals right by the front steps. I really like adding the elephant ears to give these plantings some instant height while I am waiting for them to fill out a bit.

Around the front of the house you can have a full view of Cherry Corner and the Shade Path Garden.

The assorted daylilies (Hemerocallis) are still blooming away, and I have tucked in some New Guinea impatients to keep the bloom going when they are finished.

Double version of Hemerocallis fulva

Hemerocallis 'Autumn Minaret' is my favorite for its light fragrance.

Along the Shade Path the hostas are blooming away and are most welcome. I have filled in here and there with some more New Guinea impatients and also some dark-leaved begonias.

Looking back to the fence along the Shade Path. The annuals here are really to give a nice light touch to the mounds of foliage that carry this garden through this part of the season until the fall flowers begin.

At the front of the Shade Path, I added some larger Begonia 'Dragon Wings' and the ever popular Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost'.

Altogether I think it makes a good effect for July in this dry shade garden. This area had some intense pruning of dead leaves, etc. and it looks so much better for it.

One more July pretty that is found by our potager, pink mallow (Malva alcea). I like it much better when I cut it down by half in June to keep it from becoming too top heavy.

Happy July!
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