Torrential

Every other rain has been a gully washer. I've lost count of how many times we have gotten an inch plus of rain in less than an hour. Culvert Falls has been flowing so regularly I was forced to finally and permanently divert the flow to where it needed to go.

But rain makes Lush even in the shade. My bold foliage additions in the shadier parts of the garden are doing fine in all this wet.

Big foliage like the Rodgersia have are critical to breaking up the little leaf syndrome and saying garden in the wild Lush that grows in the shade.

Big drifts of one thing also make a statement in all this space. One of this and one of that will only get lost in the green monotony.

The Lush is still standing pretty straight and tall considering. There is all kinds of budding going on. All that green will soon burst into bloom. The exuberant chaos of late summer is coming.

Joe Pye is leading the way.

Leaving Blue

If I didn't have to leave for work. If it wouldn't appear too odd. I might park a chair at the top of my driveway and watch the chicory until it closed for the day.

It is spreading by its own means and at its own pace. My seed flinging has been to little effect. I need chicory I can see while sittin' on the front porch. I'll fling some more seed.

Mostly Composites

Helianthus

Helianthus annuus

Rudbeckia

Echinacea

The Origanum filler

Ratibida

Echinacea purpurea

Rudbeckia hirta

More Echinacea

And a hillside of Lysimachia

Moist

It rained for at least thirty hours. I had another day off and another nice long nap. It's odd how fidgety I can get when I am cooped up. I don't sit still well. Oh well.

This kind of wet at this stage of growth of the tall flower meadow is when things begin to fall down. I pay more attention now to those plants that remain standing.

The Ratibida columnifera is still here. It's numbers are dwindling. It stands up, but the competition must be too tough for it to thrive and multiply.

The Eryngium yuccifolium is a known flopper. It is worth having though. It just means it shouldn't be growing next to any paths.

Clematis stans is coming into bloom. It is a rambling herbaceous shrub by nature. I need to know the habits of things because Gardy don't stake and tie up no plants. Floppage is acceptable within limits of type and quantity. A complete failure to stand up is a qualification for dismissal. Stand on your own or face banishment.

Sadly, at eight feet tall, the ironweed has great trouble standing and when it falls it bends right at the base next to the ground. Those stems will have to be cut off before they have a chance to bloom.

It's moist out there. Now we are in the misty fog phase of things. The rain appears to have ended.

The tall flower meadow grows on.

Abundance

It has rained all day long. I did some laundry and scraped up a layer of dirt inside the house, otherwise it was my first day off and of rest since I don't know when. It might rain all day tomorrow.

Yesterday evening I ambled through the wild cultivated gardens and took tons of pictures of the current floral abundance, then was too tired to do a post. Lucky, I have all these pictures for a rainy day.

Lychnis and liatris by my front porch.

The great drifts of Gooseneck Loosestrife.

One gardener has spent twenty five years planting things in the sunny utility meadow and hoping for the best. Then along came a maintenance gardener who has spent three good years uncovering what had been planted with some select editing. The desired results are now beginning to show up to much better effect.

The Beebalm is spreading once more.

A floriferous meadow is emerging from a tangled mat of vines.

Plants rise unencumbered.

In the shade of the ridgetop garden the battle for some semblance of control is less combative.

And I do mean a semblance of control. The shade only changes who tries to take over.

It's a big sunny utility meadow. There is a lot of ground to edit.

That's why the roadside vegetable garden mulched with wood chips and surrounded by wild flowers is such an easy garden to tend by comparison.

I love this combo of self sown echinacea, marjoram turned feral and wild filler wands of grass. I had nothing to do with it.

The red daylilies are turning off while the yellow ones have just turned on.

I have let some of the weeds in the vegetable garden do their thing undisturbed.

The front roadside bed after the chicory has closed for the day. I've been letting the Blue Wood Aster remain in this bed for the fall bloom and to continue the theme of blue and grass for the whole season.

Tripping with dill.

It's all wet now, but that's what it takes to have all the abundance out there.

Blooming Ramps

Allium triccocum sends up its single bloom stalk well after the leaves have left the premises.

Easily missed, the forest floor is carpeted with small round alien umbels where great patches of ramps used to be.

Bloom Day Overflow

Every day is Bloom Day overflow in the tall flower meadow. It will never all fit in one post. The Black Eyed Susans, Rudbeckia fulgida are joining in now with the R. hirta.

I might be lying to myself for a bit of self congratulations, but I swear the sunny utility meadow end of things is getting more and more floriferous. All I had to do and keep doing is edit out the steel rooted clematis vine that wants to smother everything. Given a chance there will more wild flowers.

This is what we want. The only way to get there is by hand editing. You can't spray your way to this.

Joe Pye is getting ready to go. Joe Pye has been self sowing big time. I do need to make a bit more of an effort to get this dark flowered form to the opposite end of the sunny utility meadow.

My new Plume Poppy, Macleaya cordata is blooming. I thought this plant was supposed to be more about the foliage, but that is a pretty cool bloom spike. The color is a pale cream orange. I am so looking forward to this being a five to six foot tall swarm in the garden and having enough to take divisions from. It will definitely need to be repeated elsewhere.

I can just imagine the Bloom Days in the years to come as my editing gets more and more refined once the thugs are removed.

Rain On A Bloom Day

By the time I thought Bloom Day, it was late, very overcast and threatening rain. I wasn't sure I was going to have enough light for any picture taking. Thank goodness for photo editing programs.

All the liatris I have been planting is starting to have an effect in the garden. I saw hundreds of seedlings this spring. Let's hope they survive the Lush.

Allium somebody is doing well. I bought one and have been dividing it. Now there are five fat clumps. It would show up better with shorter neighbors. I'll have to think on that.

The Gloriosa Daisy, Rudbeckia hirta are on their own. I might transplant some from out of the roadside vegetable garden just to get them out of there, otherwise they self seed and move about by themselves.

There are way more blooms out there in the wild cultivated gardens than I could easily catalog. A lot of it acts like floral filler in a bouquet, a back drop for the bigger and showier blooms in the arrangement.

Uncle Ernie in his Gloriosa.

The entire row of daylilies along the rickety split rail fence that protects us from the scenic byway were grown from collected seed. Some of them came out nice. Note the floral filler in this arrangement.

The daylilies are in full bloom and we got hundreds. She still wants more.

I've been fascinated with the blooming dill.

That's my Bloom Day because it did start to rain hard, again, and chased me inside. Be sure to visit Bloom Day headquarters in fabulous Indianapolis for more blooms from around the world.