New Blooms For This Year: Garden Bloggers Bloom Day July 2016

Here are three plants that are blooming for the first time in my garden.

Purple dragon

Purple dragon is a relative of Jack-in-the pulpit. I got my plant last year at the local rock garden society members-only plant sale. Apparently the plain green form can be “weedy” but the purplish form is not. We’ll see. So far that purple plays nicely with ‘Grape Expectations’ heuchera and Japanese painted fern.

Yugoslavian mallow

The common name for Kitaibelia vitifolia is Russian hibiscus, but since it’s neither from Russia or a hibiscus, I decided to give it a new common name. This is a big plant, over five feet (~1.5m) in my garden.That’s exactly what I want in the Slope Garden, big plants that you can see from a distance. Unfortunately the white flowers aren’t showy from a distance and you have to wade through the Slope Garden jungle to get a closer look. I am hoping it will get ever more floriferous as the years go by. I bought it from ForestFarm to replace a plant Craig Levy, a past CCG contributor, gave me.

Mountain fleeceflower

Someone at the Adirondack chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society offered this plant for sale at the members only plant sale, and I snatched it up. I had seen fleeceflowers grown in Quebec to great effect so I wanted to try one for myself. My plant was seed grown and has rather pinkish flowers. The cultivar ‘Firetail’ is supposedly a deeper red and a favorite of Piet Oudolf.I don’t find the leaves particularly attractive, but where I’ve placed it in the Slope Garden you won’t see them anyway. Looking forward to a mass of these bottlebrush flowers next year.

‘Sweet Summer Love’ clematis

For you careful readers out there, I know I said three new plants and this is number four. It did bloom a bit last year, but this is the first year it really looks like something. I received it as a sample plant from Proven Winners in 2014. It’s fragrant and floriferous, perfect for my front porch. It can grow 10 to 12 feet (~3-3.5m) but my trellis is not that big so every so often I snip the most wayward strands. Just think what it would do trained over an arbor! I’m wondering if I can finagle some netting or chicken wire between two porch posts and let it grow sideways across the length of the porch.There’s plenty more of the usual stuff blooming but I was occupied with a family wedding over the weekend and wanted to share some highlights before the entire month slipped past me.

Inspired by the words of Elizabeth Lawrence, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year,” Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers from all over the world publish what is currently blooming in their gardens, and leave a link in Mr. Linky and the comments of May Dreams Gardens.