The Weekly Gardener 1

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The Bright Days of Summer

Intense Hues

Orange Roses

Midsummer flowers embody the heat of the sun. They glow in red, orange, and yellow hues so intense they seem phosphorescent in the noon light.

Bird's foot trefoil and St. John's Wort bloom for the solstice to celebrate the beginning of summer, with dahlias, red hot poker, and gladioli to accompany them in a wide warm color harmony.

Late June is blooming season for the old-fashioned Bristol flower, or Maltese Cross, which boasts the reddest petals known to man.

Red bee-balms, hot lantanas, bright yarrow, Persian buttercups, sunflowers, zinnias, the world is awash in warm colors.

The last on that list are the go-to choices for children's flower gardens, because they germinate reliably and grow quick when the weather turns hot, to produce large colorful blooms in every shade of the warm color palette, from hot fuchsia to pumpkin orange.

I left the best for last: the Fourth of July is when the daylilies bloom, painting the landscape in fiery shades of orange, yellow, and red for over a month.

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Almost Perennials

Lavender Hibiscus

Hollyhocks, love in a mist, four o'clocks, poppies, spider flowers, French mallows, larkspur and nicotiana may be annual and biennial plants, but you'd never know it.

They come back to their garden spot year after year, because they reseed themselves eagerly, returning ten plants where there once was just one.

I had a few of these plants in my garden for years and they return reliably, almost like perennials. There's a chance that some roses won't survive winter, but I'm certain the cleomes will be back in full bloom come summer.

One characteristic these dependable plants have in common is they thrive in full sun, where they bloom abundantly, and delight the gardener with genetic variations every year.

It's not a surprise to see them in cottage gardens. They are heirloom plants, whose nostalgic charm is matched only by their eagerness to propagate.

Their pepper shaker seed heads produce countless tiny seeds that scatter with the slightest breeze, blessing the world with offspring.