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Lagerfeld Grandiflora Rose. This is a big hybrid tea rose. We love the color – Pewter with hints of silver. It’s very fragrant! 

Blue Girl Rose. This is its first year planted from bare root and our second bloom of the season. We have her in shade in the morning and afternoon sun. It’s a fragrant flower.

The other David Austin roses were have planted throughout the garden are in bud and we can’t wait to see those bloom.

How’s your garden doing now that cooler temperatures have arrived?

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“Summerific” berry hibiscus. Still going strong, the numerous hibiscus plants throughout our garden have been blooming continuously. They have huge 8” flowers and grows only about 4’ tall and 5’ wide. These grow well in moist soil. Perfect for us, as we have wetlands around the house.

Here are a few other hibiscus that bloomed all month long.

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“Dancing Bird” bee balm. Hummingbirds and butterflies are attracted to red, so we planted a lot of reds in our garden. It’s a newer variety and only gets about 2’tall. Most bee balms spread easily and bloom for a while. It just started to bloom, so hopefully we’ll see more hummingbirds!

Cinderella Swamp Milkweed. This milkweed is attractive to hummingbirds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects. Everyday I see butterflies, like below, and bees gathering nectar on it.

“Summerific” berry hibiscus. We’ve planted a few bushes throughout the property and their blooms are huge! They have huge 8” flowers and grows only about 4’ tall and 5’ wide. These grow well in moist soil. Perfect for us, as we have wetlands around the house.

Little Gem Magnolia Tree. Our two magnolia trees are continuing blossom. They are only about 5 feet tall now, but they have huge flowers already. Little Gem Magnolia trees can grow to about 20 feet tall and 10 feet wide. We purchased this species for its big blooms and strong sweet, lemony fragrance. You can even smell its scent in the air when you walk by. The leaves are a nice shiny waxy leaf with a cool brown/beige velvet underneath. You can use the leaves as winter cuttings. Little Gem Magnolias can tolerate down to zone 6.

Other plants in bloom, not shown are alliums, catmint, and a variety of roses.

Happy gardening! Oh, and don’t forget to water your plants, especially if they are newly planted.

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Little Gem Magnolia Tree. Just this past week, our two magnolia trees started to blossom. They are only about 5 feet tall now, but they have huge flowers already. Little Gem Magnolia trees can grow to about 20 feet tall and 10 feet wide. We purchased this species for its big blooms and strong sweet, lemony fragrance. You can even smell its scent in the air when you walk by. The leaves are a nice shiny waxy leaf with a cool brown/beige velvet underneath. You can use the leaves as winter cuttings. Little Gem Magnolias can tolerate down to zone 6.

Blue Girl Rose. This rose bush was planted as a bare root, and finally blossomed a beautiful rose with a nice silvery lavender color. It’s a hybrid tea that only gets about 3 feet tall. The flowers have a fragrance, but not too strong.

Phlox ‘Fashionably Early Flamingo.’ We planted this last year and thought it died. This phlox grows to about 3 feet tall and wide. We have it in part sun, and it surprisingly, flowered. We’ve read that it gets more flowers with full sun.

Cleopatra Canna Lilly. The foliage of this canna drew our eyes as we walked through Oliver Nursery in Fairfield, CT. The colors of the flowers on the Cleopatra Canna are bright red and bright yellow. We’ve had a couple bloom this month and each was a delight, and no two were the same. The blooms vary from a yellow flower with red spots to a yellow flower with red stripes. I’m looking forward to seeing one mostly red. We have 2 containers on our deck and our second is about to bloom any day now.

The Pilgrim, by David Austin. These are the first climbing roses we have growing on a trellis on the side of our house. This one seems to be pretty happy where it is. Earlier in the month, it was about 6.5 feet tall. We’ve had plenty of cuttings that made the rooms smell wonderful.

Lady Emma Hamilton, by David Austin. Three years ago, this rose first lived in a container urn in front of our house. Two years ago, we transplanted it to live in-ground next to our mailbox, and it’s been happy ever since. The bright apricot blooms can be seen far away, and the fragrance is lovely.

Mystery Rose. We don’t know the name of this low growing rose from Jackson & Perkins. Though it has a low petal count, it has a nice, sweet scent. If you have an idea what this is, please tell.

Lichfield Angel, by David Austin. We planted this rose in the garden this spring. It has creamy white, fragrant blooms.

Fiji Eleganza. This was the first Fiji Eleganza bloom of the season. We bought this classic hybrid tea rose as a bare root last year. The picture doesn’t give it justice. The color in person is amazing. Not a strong scent.

Globemaster Alliums. This was a new addition to the front bed, planted in May. We love the color and style of them.

‘Contrast in Styles’ iris. This was another new addition to our garden. Look at the colors!

Mt Fuji Japanese iris. This lives in a section of the yard that has poor drainage, but good sun. We planted this last July, so this was the first time we saw it bloom. Such a nice iris and it seems like it double in size from when we first got it. We bought this iris from Oliver Nursery in Fairfield, CT.

Dianthus American pie, blueberry pie. Supposedly fragrant flowers, but we don’t detect anything yet. Has cool blue-green foliage. Just planted a couple of these in a hummingbird/butterfly garden that we created this year. Only grows about 10 inches. We have it in the foreground and it gets sun most of the day. We bought this dianthus from Oliver Nursery in Fairfield, CT.

Sarah Mountain Laurel. The mountain laurel is the state flower of Connecticut. It grows about 8-10 feet tall, 6-8 feet wide. A native and likes the shade. We added this and some other bushes for structure in a shade garden. It’s evergreen too!

Endless Summer Hydrangea. We have this bush in a mostly sunny area that doesn’t get too hot in the afternoon. It’s a pretty reliable bloomer. It’s about 4 feet tall and wide so far. The lower turns more bloom as the flower gets older.

We have many more plants that are still budding, and likely a bunch that will be reblooming soon. We’ll share photos when they pop.

Happy gardening! Oh, and don’t forget to water your plants, especially if they are newly planted.

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Growing Notes
Grow the plant in cool to intermediate temperatures in a shady position, and keep it moist. The fragrant blooms last up to five weeks and appear at any time during the spring and early summer. During the fall months, a second flowering will often provide you with more blooms. Each spike carries from one to three large, flat, pansy-shaped blooms.

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We first encountered this orchid at Longwood Garden‘s Orchid Extravaganza in 2019.

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You should check it out if you have the chance. It’s open until Sunday April 19th.

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It lives in the sunniest location in our house. We water it when it’s about to dry or when dry. Starting in the late fall of last year, we only watered it when we saw the canes start to shrivel a little.

This orchid is in full bloom with only 6 flowers, but we totally love its colors. We can’t wait to grow this one into a specimen. It’s very young, but we can only imagine how it’ll look when there are blooms all up and down multiple canes.

Please comment on how you care for your nobiles. We would love to learn any tricks.

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The journal is pretty cool. The first few pages of the book shows Plant Hardiness Zones in North America, just in case you forget what zone you’re in. There are also helpful logs, including compost bin records and a sun log. The individual plant history pages that allow us to keep a yearly log of each plant up to 4 years.

How do you keep track of your plants? Do you use an app? A journal? Do tell.

Disclosure: We received an advance reader copy from Quiet Fox Designs. We were not given any compensation for our review. This review also includes affiliate links.

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