June 2020 Bloom Day

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day
What's blooming in the garden on the 15th of the month

There is a lot going on in the garden at this time of year. Most of these are perennials that have been featured in past years, but I will try to add a few comments and use closeups for this year's photos.

After receiving them from a Master Gardener plant swap three years ago, these bloomed well for the first time this year. A little research turned up that they are 'beach-head iris", found along the eastern coastal areas. They do best in part shade here.

Hydrangea 'Incrediball' is looking as good as ever, but just wait until the next heavy rain or wind. Half will be bowing to the ground.

A type of Opuntia -- Prickly Pear Cactus.

Unknown hosta that seeded itself three years ago.

Closeup of St. John's Wort 'Brigadoon'. This cultivar has beautiful lime green leaves when they start out.

Unknown daylily cultivar. This will bloom again off and on during the summer.

Purple coneflowers have just started.

For other garden bloggers' bloom day photos, spring over to the blog May Dreams Gardens

Daylily Experiment

A few years back I read that daylilies and bearded iris were easy to cross, so I decided to give them a try, with visions of creating the next hot cultivar. What possessed me to think that I could outdo professional plant breeders who spend their lifetime developing new crosses, I will never know.

Still, it was a learning experience and it was fun to see the results. The bearded iris were a little difficult to figure out where the pollen goes to pollinate them. A few trips to Google and the internet and I was on my way. The process is not very obvious, involving lifting up a small flap in the flower, akin to lifting up a women's skirt to get the pollen into pollinate the stigma.

Daylily crossbreeding is much more obvious. The anthers with the pollen are out front and center, and the stigma where the pollen goes is in the center of the flower. I learned that there are diploid and tetraploid daylilies (number of chromosomes), and the two will not cross. Not knowing which plants I had in my 6 daylily varieties (I think I can tell the difference now based on common characteristics), I crossed everything and anything.

The first of 7 resulting plants bloomed this year. The others will need to grow up a bit more until they flower -- maybe next year. I am certain the parents of this one are the common orange ditch lily and 'Night to Passion,' based on the color. The first bloom came out a week ago, and was striped - I think the colors got bleached out in the strong full sun and the camera emphasized that. Daylily colors tend to do that. The later blooms were something I rather like. The flower form was nice, and the color was deep a rusty orange. It's a keeper in my book.

Now I need to give it a cultivar name.

For The Record:   • Moderately clay soil   • Well-drained soil at top of sloping bed   • Full sun   • Very little fertilizer   • No serious pests/disease

Head Start

The lime green nicoitana (nicotiana alata) is one of those self-seeders that reliably comes back year after year with no help from me. This year, however, it joins a handful of others in my Zone 7b garden that never went away. Tucked on the south side of the ivy-coverd fence, these plants survived our mild winter. As a result, the seeds from last year in the main garden bed are forming silver-dollar sized rosettes while these are blooming. Welcome to head start 2020.

As the sun was going down tonight, I grabbed my camera to snap a few images since these only open during the late afternoon and evening, closing up at morning. Also, sun going down = more saturated colors the camera sees.

First to bloom means first to poop out too. Now at their height, I expect them to begin flopping over, forming seed heads, and reducing blooms. The white nicotiana that survived the winter in the backyard garden are also at peak bloom. In the past I have tried deadheading, but the plant seems to just stop growing.

I keep the whites in the back and the greens in the front to keep the colors from mixing in future generations. The have done that in the past, although I do not believe the pollinators are fond of this plant.

I also had a few other other holdovers from the mild winter besides the snapdragon and nicotiana -- spider plant, canna, and cabbage. I can explore them in a later post.

For The Record:   • Rich fertile wellp-draioned soil   • Full sun, front garden   • No fertilizer - natural leaf mulch during winter   • No serious pests/disease