It’s late June already and the azaleas, cherry trees, gardenias and peonies have bloomed out. The days are getting longer and hot! Your plants aren’t looking quite as perky as they once did just a few weeks ago and your garden is losing interest, fast. So what next??? Let me introduce you to a few things that can keep your landscape booming with color and interest thru the dog days of summer.
One of my all time favs for bloom power is Indigofera decora. A spectacular low growing deciduous shrub that will out bloom your best roses. The true indigo looks a bit like a wisteria in shrub form. Its low, yet wide habit makes it the perfect under planting for large trees. It sweeps out in every direction with 6-8” pink flowers and yes this plant blooms for up to EIGHT MONTHS! A soon as this gem wakes up in April it will start producing buds and blooms. A great plant to keep the color going in the garden thru the summer months.
Another beauty of the summer landscape is the true dwarf Lagerstroemia ‘Cherry Dazzle’. This magnificent small shrub form crepe myrtle will explode with bright red flowers in mid to late summer. Giving you everything you love about the easy growing large tree crepe myrtles in a tiny package that fits well into any landscape. Mixes well with purple loropetalums, conifers of all shapes and sizes, and softens broadleaf evergreen hedges when planted in the forefront. Cherry Dazzle can also be a focal point in the summer garden. There are other colors in the ‘Dazzle’ series but this one dazzles like no other!
Shrubs and trees aren’t the only plants you can enrich your landscape with. Colorful and unique vines and groundcovers also add great interest. Two that I really like are both jasmines. Snow-N-Summer and Ogon Nishiki. Both are bright and colorful and create a righteous look when used in the appropriate spot. Ogon Nishiki is more of a climber and displays beautiful orange and yellow new growth giving this rock star vine the attraction you want while entertaining guests in the backyard. This picture shows what Ogon Nishiki does when planted at the base of a pole near a patio…unbeatable for color. And who needs flowers when you have foliage like that!
Snow-N-Summer is just plain ridiculous. I’ve had multiple people ask me if it was fake when they noticed it at the garden center. This jasmine is a true groundcover that only climbs if staked and helped along. New growth tips are pure pink, fading slowly to bright white, then hardening off with green leaves that look as if they have been splattered with white paint. Yea, I know, sounds crazy cool. Well it is and it’s a must have for a garden with the summer time blues. No other groundcover on the planet gives you what Snow-N-Summer does.
All of these plant selections can and will thrive in the heat of summer and add to the ambiance of your landscape. So take a look in the yard and find some of those blah spots and fill it in with something that will certainly bring the WOW factor back to the garden. And don’t forget…its summer time in the south, so water your plants, baby them, talk to them, let them know you love them and they will return the favor!
