We’re off to Malvern, Pennsylvania, with Carla Z. Mudry today.
Midsummer has hit my garden, and I am in love with the riot of texture, colors, and scent. It is a dizzying array and so soul-satisfying to me. The summer colors are amazing, and it makes all of the digging, weeding, planting, and trimming worth it just to look around at what is growing!
I also now have a greenhouse. My new greenhouse is full of chili peppers I grew from seed. I love it. It’s just a small one, but it’s the perfect size for me to play in!
Purple coneflowers (Echinacea hybrids, Zones 5–9) have come a long way in recent years, and this beautiful white, double-flowered form is just stunning. It looks like it might be the variety ‘Milkshake’.
But good old-fashioned Echinacea purpurea (Zones 3–9) is always pretty great too, and much loved by a wide range of pollinators.
Carla’s summer garden is a riot of color, with many daylily (Hemerocallis, Zones 4–10) varieties taking center stage.
Literally thousands of new daylily hybrids are introduced each year, in an ever expanding range of colors and patterns. This soft lavender is particularly beautiful.
Some daylily lovers like full, round, ruffled flowers.
You can also find daylily varieties with longer, smoother petals for a star-shaped bloom. Carla enjoys the full range of daylily diversity.
True lilies are often a little fussier than their daylily relatives, but their individual blooms last longer, and many, like this Oriental lily (Lilium hybrid, Oriental group, Zones 5–9), boast a powerful fragrance.
This bright red daylily and panicle hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata, Zones 3–9) look great together, and both are durable, easy-to-grow plants.
This bigleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla, Zones 5–9) has unusual multicolored blooms, and looks like it might be the variety ‘Pistachio’.
Carla’s new greenhouse is currently filled with very happy pepper plants, which enjoy the extra warmth and longer growing season a greenhouse provides.
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