Note the size of the petals. They are small, much smaller than the hydrangeas you will find in most garden stores. The large petaled hydrangeas are not native to Maryland.
This summer has been busy and hot, and I did not get as much done with my garden as I wanted. I have been at war with some kind of insect (not any of the usual suspects with the usual solutions, I’m afraid) that is eating my roses to death. That rose garden has been nothing but trouble for me since I moved in, to be frank. There’s the insect infestation that will not be subdued, and then the crab grass and weeds are effluvient and eternal. I direct my attention away from it for as little as three days in a row and it’s as if a horticultural apocalypse occurred. But I digress.
Despite the rose/insect/weed problem and the heat (and all the other personal stuff that has no place on my garden blog), I was able to work on three sections of my garden since my last post. My biggest success, however, was finding a wonderful native plant nursery only 30 minutes away from my house. Last month I visited the nursery, and $245 later, well, I had to get these beauties in the ground before they dried up or blew away (weird weather this year, amiright?).
Remember that nasty mostly-dead row of cedars I pulled out earlier this year? Behold, the replacement:
The big white puffy flowers are smooth hydrangeas (the hydrangea species native to Maryland). Swamp milkweed and butterfly weed (difficult to see here) are interspersed between them.
You might notice that the hydrangeas are not evenly spaced. This was neither by design nor carelessness. It is due of the presence of large tree roots, the great challenge of planting in a mature landscape. I did not wish to harm any of the nearby trees by damaging their roots, so I had to dig around them and modify my planting schema accordingly. I did say I was going for a natural look, though, right? So this lay-out is, uh, part of that aesthetic. Yeah.
Hydrangea Butterfly Garden
The purpose of this mini garden is to attract butterflies, so I planted three kinds of flowers that should do the job: white smooth hydrangeas, swamp milkweed, and butterfly weed. Though the hydrangeas are already large, the smaller milkweed and butterfly weed should grow to match the hydrangeas’ size in a couple of years.
Since planting this garden a few weeks ago we have had many butterfly visitors. Eastern tiger swallowtail, monarchs, and black swallowtails are the ones I know the names of, but there have been others as well. Three days ago I spotted two monarch caterpillars on the milkweeds, so it looks like the next generation will have a home here as well. 🙂
Two Other Garden Areas
I was also able to plant up two other garden areas, but I don’t have any pictures of them yet. Hopefully I’ll be able to update with pictures in a few days.
In one of these garden beds I’m going for a red and yellow theme, so I planted eastern columbines and cardinal flowers. These flowers are spring bloomers, however, so they are uninteresting at the moment. The other garden bed is where I’m putting my pinks, purples, and blues, so I planted blue flag iris (also a spring bloomer) and gayfeathers (Liatris). The gayfeathers are in bloom and look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, so I really need to get pictures of them before their bloom season is over.