Garden Bloggers Bloom Day June 2009

Another Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day has rolled around. I looked back at last year's bloom day and we are a little behind in blooms. I still have peonies in bloom which is wonderful. Last year we had a heat wave in June. This year is has been cloudy and cool. Last year I had cucumbers and zucchini blossoms. This year they don't even have their second true leaf yet, much less blossoms, but still having peonies is a little bit of a consolation.

Many plants are the same as last year because these plants bloom for so long. As always the star of my June garden is my Korean dogwood. Its blooms stay open for about three weeks. Well the bracts stay pretty that long which is good enough for me.

The dianthus is another favorite of mine. I love it for its long period of bloom in the spring and for its wonderful scent. It doesn't hit you over the head like lilacs do, but it has a nice subtle clove like scent. You walk in to the garden in the morning and think how wonderful it all smells before you realize that you are smelling a flower.

The geraniums are such cheery flowers, all dressed in blue.

The Johnny-jump-ups were my only flower for April's bloom day. They are still growing strong. This one is giving my chocolate mint a run for its money. It has just about taken over the mint's pot. I'm not worried though. I know mints and it will be just fine.

And the last but not least of my purely decorative flowers is my one and only foxglove. I adore foxgloves. They seem like such magical flowers to me. But they don't like growing here. The first year the perennial border was put in I got a beautiful showing of annual foxgloves, but I wanted the typical perennial or biennial varieties to naturalize here. I try every year and every year I fail. Last year I put in five plants. Only one survived. Sigh. Foxgloves must hate the clay soil or maybe it is the Norway maple that is way too close.

But I have flowers in my garden that pull their weight too. The cilantro is a power house. I get cilantro in the spring and coriander in the fall. Then in the middle when the flowers bloom it bring in all sorts of beneficial insects to the garden. My favorite part is all the bees and small wasps that love to drink its nectar. I've never seen such a variety of insects on any other flower. These ones haven't opened very far yet but they will.

Yesterday I picked my first few peas. Last year's peas had showier flowers. They were purple. This years peas, all three varieties, are white.

The pepper flowers are shy and point down so you can't see under their skirts, but once they set they want to flaunt it and some stick right up into the air. These are my serranos.

And what would a garden be without tomatoes? These are one of the little F2 Sungolds that I was talking about yesterday. When the sun shines through them they are very striking.

If you wish to join Garden Bloggers Bloom Day visit Carol over at May Dream Gardens.