It’s been really hard for me and other people I’ve talked to not to lament that the summer is flying by. There just doesn’t seem like there’s going to be time to take it all in and enjoy it. But of course there’s time. We have the whole summer starting today and it just gets better from here.

For a long time, the Display Garden was primarily a late-season garden, full of tender perennials and annuals that carried us blazing into fall. We still plant those plants down here (and in every garden) but since we also planted more perennials for pollinators in the last couple of years, it’s turned into a stunning early-summer garden as well.

One of our favorite new perennials (new last year) is betony – Stachys monnieri ‘Hummelo’. It’s knee-high knobs of luminous purple are butterfly and gaze magnets. Last year we cut a few down after they finished blooming to see if they would send up another set. They didn’t so this year we’ll enjoy all of their the Piet Oudolf seedheads instead. Eryngium planum (sea holly) is another bee and butterfly magnet that looks as fabulous now as it will when the flowers fade to beige. The stems have weak ankles and need propping either between sturdier plants or resting on pea-stakes but it’s worth it for the pollinator extravaganza. (There are usually an easy dozen different species of bees and wasps on the flowers at any given mid-day moment.) And early summer wouldn’t be the same without cone flowers. Echinacea purpurea ‘Virgin’ is one of my favorites and keeps blooming for months. Months! – We still have months of summer left to go! And as the flowers go by we have their fabulous goldfinch-attracting seedheads to look forward to.

Visitors always seem surprised to see “asters” blooming this early. Kalimeris incisa ‘Blue Star’ is such a lovely long-blooming look-alike (on sturdy 2′ hedges of grass-green foliage) that I’m surprised it’s not more popular. But then maybe not everyone wants to be reminded of summer’s end right in the beginning.

Do you feel like summer is passing by too quickly or are you able to slow down enough to focus on appreciating every little bit of it?

I believe every day is a flower show but an honest-to-goodness Flower Show like the one at Rosecliff in Newport this weekend is a true extravaganza of floriferousness. And I’m not just saying that because we have an entry in one of the competitions. What makes a flower show showier than an everyday flower show in an everyday garden is that every combination of plants – every plant and every leaf of every plant, and every flower is perfectly perfect: scrutinized and meticulously groomed and then judged accordingly. Each designer’s garden is amazing, no leaf out of place and no weeds allowed (not like at home); the containers are all stupendous; the flower arrangements are out of this world; and the cut specimen are always truly outstanding. I think that’s my favorite part of this show and I might just have to go back tomorrow to see what beauties were entered. It’s a great way to learn about new plants.

Competition makes a real Flower Show especially intense and that’s why when we were first invited, along with 5 other professional gardeners, to fill an enormous container with a “Samba Parade” theme, we balked. But then we totally got into it. Gail, Tricia and I put our heads together, floated all sorts of ideas and crazy hare-brained schemes over weeks of lunch breaks, cleared a large corner of the greenhouse to pair plants with ideas and decide on colors, and then went shopping.

We’ve actually been trying to beef up our own container show here with new pots and an exciting mix of plants but strive for sustainable combinations – either one plant or species per pot or just a few different things that will play nicely together, with nothing overtaking and not packed so tightly that they’ll need to be watered more than once every day or two or three. But the Samba Parade container only needs to thrive until we pick it up Monday morning so we jammed 10 different species in and hoped for the best: the plants survival and a blue ribbon.

Fingers are still crossed that the plants will make it through a warm weekend but I just found out that we won a red ribbon. Second best is nothing to sneeze at when the competition is so fierce. The judge’s comment on our entry card reads, “Festive choice of plant material. Design is divided by airy hopbush and dense group of tropicals.” We’ll take that and shoot for cohesion next time. We definitely had an advantage of a greenhouse full of mature and interesting plants to choose from – the purple-leaf hopbush (Dodonea viscosa) intrigued everyone who walked by as we worked – but we felt at a disadvantage to those professionals who are practiced at creating beautiful pots for clients every season and who are in the habit of ranging further afield than we do to find fabulous plants. What’s cool is that all of the containers in this class were winners. The blue ribbon went to one of our very favorite philanthropists, Mrs. Hamilton who employs a team of geniuses; two second place ribbons were awarded, and three were given third place.

Have you ever entered a container or cut specimen in a flower show? Would you do it again?

Today is the official start of summer (Happy Solstice!) but we have been celebrating the season for weeks now. Everybody around here calls it summer when sailboats fill the harbor and beaches start charging for parking, but we gardeners are also tipped off by the summer annuals blooming their heads off. Some early annuals, like the oxeye daisies, have already started to go by but they’re really a transitional flower along with silene and Minoan lace (Orlaya grandiflora).The true summer daisies are chamomile, feverfew and tansy. (Don’t get me started on the differences between the different Tanacetums or my head might explode. I’m pretty sure the one in the picture – below, left- is feverfew or Tanacetum parthenium.)

Larkspur (Consolida ambigua) should be blooming out by now but ours are still only budded. If they get a chance to seed themselves around without us gardening them right back out of the soil, they’ll be more timely next year. Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), which started blooming weeks ago, never looks more fabulous than when its blooms arrive beneath thickets of seedheads. I can only hope they’ll keep on trucking into mid-summer but since they’ve just about completed their task of making seeds for next year’s show, the flowers will probably quit soon. At least we can keep their court-jester seedheads as reminders. 

We also know it’s truly summer when we plant the last of the dahlias and the large potted tender perennials we kept for cuttings all winter. Yesterday while I was wedging dahlia tubers into tight spaces in the Cutting Garden I was nearly knocked over by the scent of the sweet peas. Their moment starts now and for us only lasts a few weeks into summer.

The same is true of blue honeywort (Cerinthe major subsp. purpurescens). I’m not sure as many visitors will notice them — their shrimp-ish purple dangles are plenty weird but in a subtle sort of way. Like the sweet peas, they appreciate rich soil. In fact, the healthiest clump I’ve ever seen planted itself next to a compost pile. I’ve heard that in some gardens they’ll sow themselves into a summer-long succession of blooms. Fingers crossed.

We also call it summer when the first heatwave hits. It’s perfectly timed this year (today is already a sultry 91; tomorrow is forecast to be 99…) and might shatter our gorgeous stands of pink peony poppies. No matter. They’ll go to seed; we’ll save millions because we can’t help ourselves, and something else will take their place by mid-summer.

What annuals help you celebrate the start of summer?

I would never complain about getting rain when we need it but almost every week for the last few we’ve lost at least one day with our volunteers. It has interfered with our planting schedule and dampness has made us postpone necessary deadheading and weeding to keep from compacting the soil. But the worst part is, this year the volunteer ranks have swelled to almost 40 hardy souls and our time getting to know the newbies and hanging out with old friends keeps getting interrupted. Today, despite the damp dreariness of the morning, some of those hardy souls, newbies and veterans alike, came prepared to lean into the Rose and North Garden from the very edges to deadhead and weed as much as we could reach from arms’ length. It’s a testament to our volunteers’ dedication that they would be so willing to be so sopping.

Last night at Blithewold’s annual meeting we were able to honor one of our most dedicated and loyal Wednesday “Rockettes”, Beverly Christ with the Anne Archibald Volunteer Service Award. As Gail said in her introduction, Bev has been quietly and steadily tending to the details of the minutia of the Rock Garden for well over 20 years, and we have come to rely very heavily on her to start seeds for us in spring. As quiet and tiny as Beverly is, she’s no mouse. She’s tough as nails and doesn’t suffer fools. She takes my cheek on the chin and gives it right back. I love her more than words can say – and that’s saying something.

I know I’ve said this before but it bears repeating over and over: Blithewold is a beautiful and special place because of the people who love it. Like any garden, it wouldn’t be worth visiting if no one poured heart and soul into it. We’re very, very lucky. Because when it rains, it totally pours.

This week we had every intention of planting another big batch of seed annuals in the Display Garden but the weather had other things in mind for us. It insisted that we take the time to really think about where we wanted to place everything: it gave us the chance, in between downpours, to take out more forget-me-nots (which incidentally none of us will ever forget because their seedheads became one with our shirtsleeves and sweater-fronts) to open up even more spaces for summer bloomers. If it weren’t for rain-sogged ground, we might not have had time to weed and mulch the Rose Garden corners, and the tulips might still be sitting wet and funky on the floor behind my chair instead of drying and tidy on greenhouse benches. And we might not have made time to walk through the new tall-grass meadow or remembered to pay attention to how beautiful the gardens are as they burst into bloom – and to catch them right before. Gail, Tricia and I were especially taken with buds in the cutting garden, poised to open. They’re almost prettier now than when they’re fully open.

And even though we waited so patiently for the ground to dry out a little before planting (wet soil is too easily compacted and damaged), today we just couldn’t take it any more. We had to pick our battle – the choice was to leave plants over a hot weekend in pots they’re growing out of, or compact the soil here and there. We opted for the latter and a few willing volunteers came in for an extra shift and very gingerly tucked another few hundred plants in the Display Garden beds.

Have you been fast-forwarded through a rain delay too? Are you getting things done or noticing anything that you might not have otherwise?