Tuesday, July 14. The July Garden.

Up at 4:15. Wrote work list in English and Spanish. Sent about 20 emails. Scheduled checks to be mailed Friday. Gathered materials for evening work (290 miles away.) Breakfast apple pie, whole fat organic yogurt, coffee. Database work with the web guy who’s based in Copenhagen. Cut flowers. Met/instructed crew. Laid out new garden pond, water staircase, raised terrace with colored paint and straw. Realized today is the 2 year anniversary of my best friend Eric. Cried and called Tom and Pat. What a great release, a lovely stop in the middle of a slammed day, thank you kindly sweet Eric. Off to meet Southern Living for a crinum photo shoot. Hands and feet are neon blue with orange accents.

Here are some things you can do to your July Garden:

Deadhead the Daylilies. You need to CUT the dry stalks because pulling them can damage the plants for next summers flowers.

Keep fig vine under control. Yes, this is a constant issue, but it seems to me that this time of year it is particularly important. Just clip around the edges to show it who’s the boss.

Shear other things like any cones, balls or other accent you might have given your boxwood, laurels or yaupons. And be happy you have just a little accent to take care of.

Start making lists. August is the time to seed in biennials so plan now for what you want next spring.

What’s Looking Good Now

Hibiscus Fireball is a compact 4 tall plant with fine-textured green foliage sometimes having a purplish tinge. This accents the incredibly brilliant large burgundy-red flowers. It blooms from early summer through early fall and looks great with grasses as a background. Plant this one in moist to wet soil in full sun and watch it take off. Its growth rate is amazing.

Hibiscus Syriacus is as old fashioned as a rope clothesline, but its a tough heat lover. This year my favorite is Aphrodite which is a hybrid of two earlier cultivars. At the farm in Lake City, South Carolina the masses are spectacular in flower, and it really looks great behind blue salvia. It will grown 6-8 feet tall usually, but can get up to 10 feet, and if its not pruned narrower can reach out 6 feet or more. The flowers are 3-4 and are a rosy pink with magenta throats. I also really like Blushing Bride, and our intern Eric Healy loves the gaudy yellow variegated, lavender-flowered Mechanii.

Mirabilis Longiflora (Long Petal Four Oclock) (Sweet Four Oclock) is what I REALLY want! It grows beautifully as a perennial at Boone Hall, but every cutting I take dies. So I stick to the long-lived, opening-at-5 p.m.-smelling-up-the world old-fashioned four-oclocks. But the M. Longiflora is still my dream with its tubular 4-6 white to pink flowers borne on 5 tall stems, this nocturnal blooms steadily from July through September and has the sweetest, most exotic perfume. Its curling, magenta stamens are spectacular. This is a must for moonlight and fragrance gardens (if you can keep it alive). And, by the way, speaking of those old-fashioned four-oclocks, did you know that you should segregate the colors? If you get one purple among the pastels, in just a few years youll have only purples!

July Garden Flowers

Agastache Blue Fortune (Hyssop) is about the only Agastache that doesnt hate our humidity, and it flowers like crazy! It makes a big, thick mat of roots and stems that blocks out weeds, but it may have to be kept from falling on or shading out other plants. Its lavender-blue flowers last from July through September and the bees and butterflies love it. Its flowers are tine and tube shaped blooms packed tightly in a rounded false whorl. The 4 leaves are silky underneath and have a pleasant mint-anise fragrance. The plant grows 2-4 feet tall and has a 1.5-2 foot spread. It a great companion to the magenta blooms of Echinacea.

Eupatorium cannabinum (Holy Rope) (St. Johns Herb) (Hemp Agrimony) is a tall-growing erect plant whose leaf form is generally like that of Hemp. It has a woody rootstock with stems that are reddish in color. It blooms in late summer and into autumn with dull lilac-colored flowers in crowded masses and the tops of the stems and branches. Its good in a woodland or moist, low-lying area of dappled shade, but honestly, with all the dramatic, purpled-flowered, big plants and great ground covers in this genus, this plant is downright ugly by comparison.