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July Gems

Let's start with a well known but problematic one - delphinium. Many gardeners have given up on this tall beauty because it falls over and its stems break in summer rain storms. According to Sarah Milek of Cider Hill Gardens in Windsor, Vermont, the key is to feed the soil every year, and cut off the seed heads. Her delphinium are five tall or more, gorgeous, and don't flop. She adds about a cup of Pro-Gro organic fertilizer to the soil every spring around each large delphinium plant. They're heavy feeders, she explained, and need regular fertilizing.

Sarah Milek also surrounds each clump with four stakes. She uses 5-foot long, quarter-inch diameter iron rods and loops green string around each rod. She does this at the 3or 4-ft level for 5-ft stems. She often gets a second set of blooms from her plants by cutting them right to the ground after blooming, and keeping them well watered during August. She emphasized that if you let your plants go to seed, they lose energy and are not as vigorous the next year - and will flop.

Hollyhocks are also tall and gorgeous, and blooming in my garden now. According to some books, hollyhocks are biennials, blooming and dying their second year. In my experience, they are perennials. They like my rich soil that stays lightly moist, and come back for several years running. They are not long-lived plants, but self sow. If yours die out, try planting them in full sun in soil that doesn't dry out.

Bee balm (Monarda didyma) is another July gem. For best success, plant where it only gets morning sun if you have dry soil, or in full sun if there is plenty of moisture. Given the conditions it likes, this flower can take over a flower bed by spreading its roots. But it pulls easily, so I don't worry about it. Use flower heads for tea - either fresh or dried.

Last year at the Lebanon Farmers Market I bought a so-called tree scabiosa (Cephalaria gigantea) and it began blooming early in the month. Not a tree at all, the leaves of this perennial form a large clump about 18 inches tall, and send up flower stems five feet tall or more. The light yellow blossoms look like scabiosa (a.k.a pincushion flower) on steroids, each an inch and a half or more across. It likes full sun and moist soil. So far, I've not needed to stake it.

Knautia macedonia (no common name) is similar to Cephalaria, but has smaller, deep maroon flowers that seem to float 30 inches above the basal foliage. I grow it in full sun with dry soil. It will self sow, and develop into a nice patch in just a couple of years.

Another perennial that likes full sun and moist soil is one with no common name, Persicaria polymorpha (Sorry, you Latin-phobes. Just pronounce every letter.) I bought one in 2004 and this year it is blooming for the first time. The flowers remind me of astilbe blossoms: tiny white florets arranged in clusters on vertical spikes that have a reddish hue. It stands about 5 feet tall, and, over the years, will form a clump five feet across. I've been told that it doesn't get unruly and take over.

I love meadow rues, a group of wild flowers and garden plants that include some 300 species - of which I grow half a dozen. My newest one is called Thalictrum flavum glaucum (no common name, either). It grows to be 5 or 6 feet tall, and has gorgeous fuzzy yellowish ball-shaped blossoms in clusters, each bloom half an inch across. The foliage is a dreamy blue-gray, and is good enough to justify garden space. It likes full sun or part shade, and prefers slightly moist soil.

Greater masterwort is an odd common name, so I prefer to use its Latin epithet, Astrantia major. This July gem prefers full sun in moist soil (which is where I grow it) but will grow in dry soil in part shade. Its flowers -profuse in number - come in white or rosy colors, each in inch or so across. They look upwards, and have finely detailed flowers full of tiny petals and bracts.

So go get some new flowers - either these or others - and spice up your garden. Good gardens take years to perfect - but the fun is in helping them get there.

Henry Homeyer is offering garden classes in his garden July 29 and August 5. E-mail him at gardening-guy@valley.net, or call him at 603-543-1307 for more information.

Henry Homeyer is the VT/NH associate editor of "People, Places and Plants" magazine. Contact him at gardening-guy@valley.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, N.H. 03746.