Today I want to show some of the things we have blooming here in early August. The pollinator garden (aka Wild Garden) is loaded with blooms right now. Everything there was planted to provide some sort of appeal to pollinators, butterflies and birds. We don’t deadhead blooms when they set seeds, since those are eaten by finches and other small birds. Recent rains have everything growing lush lately too.
Wild Garden in August
Butterflies are frequent visitors to our garden, and I have seen swallowtails visiting the bee balm and Joe Pye Weed recently. They also like the petunias, which we have blooming in several places.
Swallowtail butterfly
The native Brown-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia triloba) is covered in blooms now. It’s a tall plant, with small daisy-like blooms. It also tends to reseed itself, which makes it a good candidate for naturalizing. I try and pluck out seedlings that pop up in unwanted areas to keep it from taking over.
Brown-Eyed Susan
Rudbeckia Henry Eilers has rayed blooms that resemble asterisks! It’s another tall plant, and the flowers are sweetly perfumed with vanilla and anise scents.
Rudbeckia Henry Eilers
Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium maculatum) is a tall plant native to North America. It towers up above most of the other perennials, and the purple-pink flowers are absolutely a magnet for butterflies.
Joe Pye Weed
closeup of Joe Pye Weed
Swallowtail butterfly on Joe Pye Weed
The bee balm is about done for here, but the swallowtail butterflies are still visiting it for nectar too.
swallowtail butterfly on bee balm
The Scarlet Hibiscus (Hibiscus coccineus) is another native plant, found in swampy areas of the southern U.S. We got seeds for this back in 2009 from two sisters who were on our Master Gardener Garden Walk, and have been growing it ever since. It’s winter hardy in our area, and can easily be started by seed. It gets up to six feet tall, and it is a hummingbird and butterfly magnet! Like other hardy hibiscus plants, the blooms only last for one day. This plant pretty much goes straight up, so we have several of them planted fairly close together.
Scarlet Hibiscus
Scarlet Hibiscus
We also have several other hardy hibiscus that have been flowering since early summer.
Hibiscus Starry Starry Night
Hibiscus Cranberry Crush
The Sun Garden is home to my wife’s growing collection of iris, plus other perennials and shrubs like oakleaf hydrangea and viburnum. The Shasta daisy Becky is a reliable bloomer, and has long-lasting white blooms. We have a small metal table and chairs with pots of annuals sitting on them to give a little more color to the area.
Sun Garden
We do have shorter perennials planted, especially around the edges of our garden. The Millenium Allium is blooming now, and we have it in several places. The chive-like foliage is topped with rosy-purple flowers. Unlike many of the flowering alliums, this one seldom self-sows. It can easily be propagated by division, and that is one reason we have several of them now! The blooms are popular with our bees.
Allium Millenium
Another shorter plant blooming here now is the Daybreak threadleaf coreopsis. I see smaller pollinators on it sometimes, and the cheerful yellow flowers have orange-red centers that light up the border.
Daybreak Coreopsis
I hope you have enjoyed this look at some of the things we have blooming here in early August. I will be back soon with more happenings from Happy Acres!
