Summer Flowers for Your Garden
Just as bulbs are the stars of a spring garden, annual plants are the stars of a midsummer garden. Gardeners prize annuals, because they produce many flowers. The flowers are brightly colored and make a beautiful display. Many of them are excellent for cutting as well.
The low-growing annuals are used for both beds and borders. A popular edging plant is the lacy sweet alyssum, with its white or lavender blossoms. Spicy petunias bloom all summer long. The portulaca carpets the ground with vivid red, pink, yellow, white and purple flowers. Yellow, orange, and red nasturtiums are always favorites. They are so gay and easy to grow. Dwarf French marigolds and dwarf zinnias are colorful and have an added advantage: the more they are cut, the more flowers they produce. Among all the bright colors, the fuzzy ageratum adds a misty note of blue.
The taller annuals include cutting flowers like zinnias, marigolds, and spiky snapdragons, which come in white and shades of yellow, pink, and red. In this group, too, are four-o’clocks, which open every afternoon at 4; blue cornflowers, or bachelor’s buttons; and nicotiana, the heavenly perfumed white tobacco flower. One of the tallest annuals is the cosmos, a flower of Mexican origin that resembles a daisy. Although it looks delicate, it blooms until the first frost.
A number of other summer favorites are either biennials or perennials. Many of the old-fashioned garden flowers are in this group. There are white, pink, and blue Canterbury bells; blue delphinium; and purple, yellow, and white foxgloves. All three produce graceful spears of blossoms. The clove-scented phlox has clusters of bright flowers with contrasting eyes like the sweet William. Lemon-yellow, orange, or red day lilies bloom for only a day, but as one lily fades another blooms on the same stem. Red, yellow, and white hollyhocks, which may reach a height of 9 feet, make a colorful background for the summer garden.
The rose is the best loved and most fragrant of all the summer flowers. It has a woody stem and is actually a shrub. Cultivated roses are found in every shade from silvery white to deepest purple. Roses are divided into three large groups: bedding roses (those that are planted in beds), climbers, and shrubs. Bedding roses include tea roses, hybrid teas, floribundas, and such old-fashioned types as the French, moss, and damask roses. Climbing roses grow along fences and walls. They include the ramblers, which can be trained over arches and trellises. Shrub roses are large types that grow in a spreading, bushy form. Some reach a height of 15 feet.
Two summer flowers are grown from underground stems, the gladiolus and the lily. The gladiolus is one of the best cutting flowers. Its long spikes of blossoms are both colorful and long-lasting. Of the many varieties of lilies, the tall golden-banded lily is a good choice for a summer garden. It has fragrant white blossoms banded in gold.
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