Blackberry Lily

I bought this plant before the ankle incident and didn't get it planted out, so it sat in it's nursery pot for several years and managed to loose it's label.  I finally put it in the ground last fall.  It bloomed this summer and fortunately a number of people posted photos of it on the internet so it was easy to identify--blackberry lily, Iris domestica.  It formerly was in a genus of its own, but due to recent genetic work, it was moved to Iris.  I hope it will settle in and have more than one flowering stem next summer.

Tall Flowers

Great coneflower, Rudbeckia maxima, is native to the south.  These, planted next to the rain gauge, are 8 feet tall.  It is also called cabbage leaf coneflower in reference to it's large silvery-blue leaves.

Common or wooly mullien, Verbascum thapsus, is an European native, introduced and naturalized in the US for it's medicinal uses.  This one, growing near the coneflower, is almost as tall as the cone flower.  When the girls were small, we called it "fuzzy monster"  because it has very fuzzy  leaves.  I just found out that mullien is a very good plant for moths, both adults and larvae.  Some studies suggest that moths are better pollinators than butterflies.

The Last of the Daylilies

As July comes to a close, so does daylily season.  Not too many daylilies left around the house above Heck Creek after a year of totally no garden maintenance due to the ankle incident.

July

Red . . . 

Crocosmia

White . . .

Daucus

Blue . . . 

Plumbago

Seasonal decor at the house above Heck Creek.