What’s Growing in the Garden: Part 2 Summer

The weather has turned this week and I feel like summer may come early this year. The garden is changing daily and we have slowly been switching it out from the spring season. Right now it‘s full of roses, herbs, lettuces and seedlings of all kinds. You may recall that I worked with Pike Nursery in the spring for all of my planting needs. I was lucky enough to work with them again to help me prepare the garden for summer. Everything from seeds, plants, materials and things to keep the garden healthy; Pike has it all and more.

I will tell you, which this comes as no surprise, the garden will be (hopefully) filled with flowers this summer. We planted twice as many dahlias, zinnias, cosmos and a few other beauties which I will list out in more detail below. I also updated our garden map from the spring to summer (see below). Along with flowers, we planted a variety of tomatoes, snap peas, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, sweet potatoes, and squash. We already have some established strawberry, blackberry and raspberry plants; which I hope will produce this year. We have plenty of herbs for all of the summer dishes, including some just planted basil seeds. My favorite variety is purple basil, not only for it‘s color, but flavor too.

For Mother’s Day this year, Troster is working on a little landscaped area right next to our garden. It includes our Vego Garden and will also have some of my favorite plants surrounding it and a wildflower patch. The Vego Garden will house our summer squash and some cucumber plants. I can’t wait to show you when it’s all complete.

All of the plants and seeds listed below were purchased from Pike Nursery, 3 Porch Farm and Floret Flower. A few Dahlia Tubers were purchased from The Flower Hat and Bear Creek Farm. Roses are from David Austin, Monrovia and Pike. Flowers:

Dahlias- This does not include all of the dahlias we planted, plus we left some tubers in the beds and I have no idea what they are. It will be a surprise for all of us.

• Sweet Nathalie

• Genova

• Golden Scepter

• Pom Pom Mix

• Dinner Plate Lilac

• Cafe’ Au Lait

• Pink Suffusion

• Ryecroft Jan

• Blizzard

• Dahlia Seedlings

Flowers:

• Variety of Zinnias

• Variety of Cosmos

• Snapdragons

• Feverfew

• Sweet Peas

• Moon Flower

• Variety of Sunflowers

• Climbing Hydrangea

Herbs:

• Tarragon

• Purple Basil

• Lemon Basil

• Oregano

• Lemon Thyme

• Orange Mint

• Peppermint

• Rosemary

• Lavender

• Garlic

Vegetables and Fruit:

• Yellow Pear Tomato

• Pink Bumblebee Cherry Tomato

• Sungold Cherry Tomato

• Black Cherry Tomato

• Matt’s Wild Cherry Tomato

• San Marsano Tomato

• Shishito Pepper

• Iko Iko Sweet Pepper

• Eros Sweet Pepper

• Fairytale Eggplant

• Santana Eggplant

• Marketmore Cucumber

• Summer Squash

• Purple Magnolia Snap Peas

• Amish Snap Peas

• Blackberries

• Raspberries

• Sweet Potatoes

Roses:

• Sugar Moon: A strong citrus scent with very large blooms. A few of these roses will perfume an entire room. Repeat bloomer and wonderful as a cut flower.

• Nitty Gritty: A white shrub rose that is a repeat bloomer. Beautiful as a border and fills out nicely.

• Queen of Sweden: A delicate rose, one of my favorites with the scent of myrrh.

• The Lady Gardener: A repeat flowerer that form large rosettes. I love the hint of vanilla.

• Emily Bronte: An old rose fragrance and is a bushy shrub rose.