Blooming Window Boxes and Garden Flowers Around the Potting Shed

Happy Thursday! You’re invited to join me for a little flower therapy and see what’s in bloom around the Potting Shed!  Note: Photo heavy post ahead, so get comfy and grab something cold to drink, it’s hot and humid outside!

Endless Summer Hydrangeas are blooming!

I highly recommend planting an Endless Summer Hydrangea if you have room in your landscape. They mature to 3 – 5 feet in height and width and are hardy in USDA zones 4 – 9. Note: For new gardeners, a USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. You can look up your hardiness zone by zipcode, here.

Hydrangeas need sun to bloom, preferring morning sun with afternoon shade especially in the hot and humid South. . .just like me. ;)

Endless Summer Hydrangea blooms can be blue or pink depending on your soil’s pH level, turning blue in acidic soil and pink in alkaline soil. For blues and purples, the soil pH should be between 5.5 to 5.8. A 3-in-1 Meter will help you determine your soil’s pH. You can amend your soil to become more acidic by adding composted oak leaves, pine needles and coffee grounds, or find a product in the garden center with Aluminum Suphate, following the directions on the package to produce blue flowers. Garden lime will increase soil alkalinity and keep hydrangeas pink in color.

I’m often asked what fertilizer I use on our hydrangeas. I use Pennington UltraGreen Azalea, Camellia & Rhododendron Plant Food. It’s formulated for acid-loving plants and is around $8 for a 5 lb. bag at Lowe’s. I apply it at the beginning of March on the hydrangeas (as well as the azaleas and gardenias) and then give them a second dose in July, 4 months later. We’re in USDA zone 7b so hydrangeas will bloom until frost, which is typically November in North Carolina. See a fall flower arrangement with Endless Summer Hydrangeas and pumpkins, HERE.

We have a couple of BloomStruck Hydrangeas planted by the Potting Shed.

BloomStruck is a newer addition to the Endless Summer collection of reblooming hydrangeas. BloomStruck has red-purple stems and like other Endless Summer Hydrangeas, blooms on old wood from last year’s growth and the new growth of summer.

The daylilies are beginning to bloom!

If you’re looking for a low-maintenance flower for the garden, you can’t beat daylilies for their reliability, hardiness and big, colorful blooms. The daylily’s botanical name, Hemerocallis, means “beauty for a day” as each bloom only remains open for a single day.

Depending on the variety, the bloom season can last 30 to 40 days or longer. Blooming starts in late spring and can continue into early fall.

For best results, plant daylilies where they’ll get six hours or more of direct sunlight each day. Daylilies will also grow in partial shade, but will produce fewer flowers.

Daylilies are easy to transplant, quick to multiply and relatively free from pests. They can be enjoyed as a pop of color in a garden bed among other perennials or massed together and planted in drifts.

Daylilies will grow for many years without any attention, but the plants will produce more flowers if they are divided about every 5 years. Divide daylilies after the plants have finished blooming in late summer or early fall. Dig up the entire plant and cut or pull the clump apart.

You can keep the divisions larger or you can divide the plant into individual fans. The fans can then be planted close together to fill in areas of your garden. Before replanting, trim the foliage back to a height of about 6 inches and cover with 1 to 2 inches of mulch.

We planted the boxes with an assortment of sun-loving annuals in April. . . petunias, sweet potato vine and a coleus for the colorful foliage they will be bright and showy long after the petunias fade and are spent.

We purchased the window boxes 6 years ago from windowbox.com. I chose a vinyl / polyethylene material for the window boxes to tolerate the UV rays here in the sunny South without splitting or cracking. I’m very pleased with the quality and how true the color has stayed without fading, much longer than painted wood window boxes would have.

They have a double wall design with a water reservoir to encourage root growth, so they’re self-watering to a certain degree until August arrives and the heat approaches the triple digit range!

I discovered two years ago during our Squirrel Wars, that not only did a squirrel dig up the flowers in my window box, it ate through the polyethylene material into the irrigation wall of one of the boxes.

{ insert *bad words* here }

We used Flex Tape to patch it and are pleased how well it has held up, preventing the window box and reservoir from filling with water!

Butterfly bush is blooming, a favorite of the butterflies and the bees. . .

As well as Verbena Lollipop.

Verbena Lollipop grows in USDA zones 6 – 10, prefers full sun in well-drained soil and is a butterfly and bee magnet.

Gardeners beware: It self-sows and and can pop up everywhere, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on whether you’re a pollinator or a tidy gardener. ;)  I’m not so tidy so don’t worry about it sprouting up.

It grows 24 – 36 inches tall at maturity and tolerates the heat which is important in the hot and humid South and blooms through fall.

How’s your garden growing?

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 Between Naps on the Porch