Spectacular Summer Blooms

Thought I would share what greets me each day when I walk out my front door. The perennial bed that I put in last year is just spectacular. Be forewarned, this post is very picture heavy but in my opinion, so worth the viewing. The top picture is a the view that someone has when they are walking up to my house.


This fuschia geranium was calling my name when I went to the local garden center this spring. I absolutely love the color. I have it in a pot sitting on my retaining wall of my perennial bed.


This gallardia, or Arizon blanket flower, is just gorgeous. I have 3 that survived the winter. This one is doing the best of them all.


The sea of echinecea's. These are my most favorite flower. I have over 15 varieties and there are still a few more that I'd love to add to my garden. They have really outdone themselves this year.




We added these hanging baskets to the front porch off the bay window. These geraniums were from last year. I over wintered them in the house and repotted them fresh this spring. I think they are doing wonderful!


This echinecea is called 'hot papaya'. I just love it's vibrant tomato red color.


This echinecea is called 'magmus'. It's a much more robust and larger echinecea than it's cousin 'purpurea'. Purpurea's were the first echinecea's that I grew and started my love affair with the flowers.


The white echinecea is called 'milkshake'. It is much like the 'hot papaya' one that I just shared, and last year was a new introduction in the echinecea world. I bought it, not really knowing what it was going to look like. It hasn't disappointed me either. The pink one that is similar is called 'pink double delight' and is much smaller than it's cousins.


Last year we planted impatiens along the edge of the retaining walls. This year the hubby suggested petunias, hoping they would cascade over the retaining walls and help keep the bed cooler. The white petunias are very vigorous, while the red ones aren't as much. The hubby thinks they have a root disease as some have rotted away from the roots up.


This larger phlox is just spectacular when in full bloom. Here it's just starting to bloom.


This bee balm is just coming into it's peak. The bees are going crazy on it most mornings. It's over 3' tall.


This a smaller bee balm. It's just right around 3' in height.


This purple coreopsis is the only one of 3 that remain from last year. I don't know what happened to the other 2 but this one is doing terrific.


If one plants can be called a show stopper, then this giant bee balm is it. It's huge. Standing over 5' in height with gorgeous red flowers. It makes a spectacular backdrop to my echineceas. We planted all of our bee balm along the 3' high chain link fence to replace the tired old azaleas that were there last year. I haven't regretted my decision one bit. Neighbors keep stopping and asking me what that red flower is!


This is the only new addition to my perennial bed this year. It's a fuschia salvia and I definitely couldn't resist it when at the local nursery. It's just barely hardy to our frost zone and I'm hoping that with a little luck and a lot of babying over the winter, that it will survive for next spring. It's simply gorgeous. Fuschia seems to be the color for me this spring.


This echinecea is called 'white swan' and is like it's more traditional cousin 'purpurea'. It's one of the taller ones.


This is another coreopsis that survived...it's called 'american dream' and the other flower in the picture is a stokesia called 'color wheel'. It has 3 different colored blossoms on it when in full bloom.


This echinecea is called 'sunrise'. Another one of my favorites...oh what am I saying, they are all my favorites.


And if you're still hanging in there with me, this is the last picture to share of the flowers out front of my house. These are my upper front window boxes. We planted the same red and white petunias in them as we did along the retaining walls. I'm loving that they are just starting to cascade down over the box. Hope you enjoyed the pretty picture show. I'll have to share the flowers in the back and side beds at a later time.

Until next time...