Another Saturday already?! It has stayed unseasonably cool and drippy here. The garden flowers have shown superior staying power, perhaps because they’re fooled into feeling they’re in a refrigerator. I still have peonies blooming — very unusual for mid-July.
ONE – Below are some bouquets recently gracing our home from an abundance of blooms. It certainly is fun to grow flowers I love!
TWO – In May we expanded a border near The Black Arches, removing another foot or so of grass all along a 30′ edge. This area is mostly shade. I’ve grown foxgloves here each year that I start from seed, but wanted to bulk it up some. After amending the soil with plenty of compost, I added a couple dozen easy-care perennials to the area: Two varieties of Brunnera macrophylla (‘Jack of Diamonds’ and ‘Jack Frost’) and two varieties of Heuchera (‘Wildberry’ and ‘Silver Gumdrop’). We’re enjoying the new plantings which are visible from our deck. The tiny blue flowers on the brunnera have just about faded in time for white and peach foxgloves to bloom.
THREE – I don’t know how this unidentified clematis blooms so well in practically full shade, but I’m thankful it offers a great spot of color along the fence.
FOUR – Naturalized foxgloves, Digitalis purpurea, have seeded themselves excellently this year on the slope along our driveway. I couldn’t have planned or planted them any better if I tried.
FIVE – At the bottom of Coppertop’s hill, the entrance to the veggie garden is abuzz with bees on the two climbing hydrangeas, Hydrangea petiolaris.
SIX – The veggie beds are producing well, despite the weather. This week’s harvests included lettuces, peas, leek and garlic scapes, and strawberries.
Six on Saturday is hosted each week from the U.K. by Jon, The Propagator. Garden bloggers from around the world post and view each other’s progress to offer support and gain inspiration. Feel free to join in!
Gardens at Coppertop -- March Picker 
The two climbing hydrangeas are a show. Those foxgloves are rather spectacular too.
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Thank you!
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Love that entrance to the vegetable garden!
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I don’t tire of it!
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Perfect! I love these long shots. What a beautiful garden you have!
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I appreciate your kindness, Granny. Heading your way now…
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That is a fabulous vegetable garden! The clematis in the shade almost looks like it isn’t a clematis. I like it’s stripes.
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Thanks, Lisa. I’m surprised at the clematis in deep shade. Have a good gardening week!
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Gorgeous, and a couple of plants I will have to look up. Those Foxgloves are luscious and native to boot!
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Don’t you love the way nature does its thing so effortlessly — compared to our striving…?
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yes, birds planted the shrubs in front of my house perfectly and I would never have thought of the placement or the plant.
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When we went to New Zealand some years back we saw a lot of foxgloves, naturalised but not native, and interestingly about 50% white, which I put down to a high proportion of NZ natives having white flowers so maybe the whites got pollinated and the pinks less so. Probably nonsense. Your foxgloves have more flowers packed onto the spike than most of our UK native ones so I wondered if they were a different species. So I looked them up and the bad news is that it doesn’t appear to be native to your side of the pond, only to Europe and Asia. I wonder, given the size of the flower spikes, whether they are cultivated forms that have become naturalised rather than wild European forms, they’d give the selected seed strains you can buy here a run for their money. I’m not getting lots of hits from US websites saying what a noxious alien weed they are, so presumably they’re fairly benign.
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Jim, of course I meant to write naturalized, not native, and have corrected my error… OK, not really, but I often wish I had your knowledge of plants, so I’ll just pretend I knew it all when I originally posted. 🙂 ha! Thank you for teaching me something I won’t soon forget! Have a great week.
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Wow, I can remember digitalis like that up there, maybe a bit early in June. At the time, I really liked it because it is not so easy to grow here, and certainly does not get so tall. Now though, it is something we need to pull along with all the other weeds.
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We don’t pull them unless they’re in a pathway or encroaching on other plants. We haven’t seen such abundant self seeding anywhere except this empty slope, and bees love them. 😉
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I wonder whether Jim is begging some seed from your foxgloves? He maybe is too polite to ask. He has so much knowledge and loves growing from seed. I’ve never seen hydrangea petiolaris grown other than on a wall. The way you have chosen to grow it is very effective.
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The entrance to the veg garden was planted by previous owners, but it is certainly enjoyed by us. Thanks, Noelle.
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You had my undivided attention with your beautiful flowers and well defined beds, and then you put the cherry on the post with photos of your amazing veggie gardens. Impressive gardening going on there. 🙂
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That is a high compliment coming from you with your vibrant green thumb! Have a great week, Judy.
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Your neat veggie plot is impressive! I have that climbing hydrangea on a north facing wall but it never has that many flowers!
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It does seem to be a banner year for those blooms :-). maybe because I aggressively pruned the pair of hydrangeas.
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I’m very guilty of overpacking my borders, so I’m taking a lesson from you that will hopefully remind me that plants often grow rapidly to fill the spaces. Thanks for the May, June and July photographs. The Brunnera and Heuchera leaves are truly beautiful. I’m a fan of both.
The climbing hydrangeas are fantastic – I love flowers climbing over arches and I keep looking at my space hoping that the garden fairy will point me to the perfect spot to have an arch that I can admire from my own windows, but alas, without a major garden re-design I think I’ll just have to admire yours and others that I’ve seen on Six on Saturday!
Lovely blog post.
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Thanks, Catherine! Brunnera and heuchera do very well here, especially in that damp shade of the new bed. There are many great varieties now that somehow brighten a shady spot even when they’re not blooming. Enjoy your week in the garden.
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Your garden is looking fabulous. The vegetable garden is a perfect picture. The foxgloves make such a naturalistic scene and I also admired the pretty mixed posy you’ve put together.
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Your kind words are appreciated!
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the foxgloves look amazing. … oh, and i have serious veg envy. Those raised beds look amazing.
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When we grew veg in the Lisboa area, we had a marvelous field. Here, the raised beds truly help with drainage in our damp climate. Also, it is pretty great to have the height of beds as we age… 🙂
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love the expanded border. you would feel at home with my shady border, lots of similar plants. i need a bigger garden, i fear i may have reached the practical limits of my border expansions…
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Ah, Jon, lack of space is a problem many gardeners share — but not one I’m faced with. Always looking for ways to reduce the large expanses of lawn here. 🙂
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Climbing Hydrangeas are a real challenge to grow around here, yours look great!
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I enjoyed reading your postt
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