Summer Is Over...

Summer is over... here in the North.

Autumn is coming with red falling leaves, harvest, rains, cold nights, clouds. Here are some late summer flowers those are still in bloom despite of cold nights. 
Dahlias and gladioli are in bloom and their red, orange, striped and white heads are waving under rain and wind.

Lilies fade and only yellow and orange ones decorate the flower bed. They  tolerate rain well.

 

I'm pleased that my clematises continue blooming till October but then they need to be cut and cover with dry leaves for wintering. 

 'Jackmani', 'miss Bateman' and 'Justa'

Begonias are not so hardy and the first frost will kill their nice flowers. It's so sad! Therefore I try to move them in my greenhouse before frost. 

Tradescantia still is flowering as well. This summer only few buds were on its stems, have no idea why. 

 

I bought 3 bulbs of crocosmia (montbretia) when I visited the Keukenhof garden, The Netherlands. They raised well and are in bloom since mid-August.

Two varieties of Hydrangea paniculata flower as mad. One of them 'Grandiflora' is 10 years old bush and another one 'Lime light' is 3 years, is still short.

That's all for now, summer was cold and then hot. However I love summer: all plants do their best: green, bright, colorful, growing, blooming. What will coming autumn be?

What was this summer in your garden? Have you got harvest? Are you pleased with your new plants?
Thank you!

The Lily, The Beauty

The Lily. That was the name of the new exposition held in Saint Petersburg Botanic Gardens last week. As I have some Trumpet Hybrids lilies in my garden, I wanted to visit this show and to learn more about Lilium.

 

The Botanic Gardens is not far from my place and at 11 am I was there. The first visitors and I began to get acquainted with lilies, to sniff and take photos of these beautiful cut flowers. All lilies were put in vases and the owners watched them carefully and exchanged the faded by the blooming ones.

Here are the photos of some Asiatic, Martagon, Trumpet and Candidum Hybrids that I liked the most. I was interested in the shapes, combination of colors, some unusual shades. Some of the flowers amazed me by their combination of colors as white and light brown, deep red with white edges, pale pink with yellow center. 

 

Others looked very tenderly of white, pink, purple, lime. The deep red or better to say black one was a surprise for me. 

 

The very elegant and graceful Martagon lilies were shown in another hall. I have no them in my garden and I thought to plant some near the patio. 

 

There was a stand with books and handicraft souvenirs made by the exhibitors. I liked these decoupage pots and cups! I've also seen the contoured drawing on a dense paper for any amateur of lily could paint them with watercolor. Great!

Hope you liked this exposition, did you choose some lilies for your garden, balcony or terrace?

And in the end if you're not tired of lilies I would like to show you my Trumpet hybrids:

GBBD in August 2014

This Garden Blogger Bloom Day is a day of roses. The weather is still very warm, severe thunderstorms were yesterday and today. The temperature dropped a little, but we are still in summer, autumn has not come yet. Usually autumn comes in late August or early September here. Days became shorter and nights are already very dark. 
I have to turn on the lights in the garden and the porch at the evenings. White roses beautifully look at night in the darkness. Every morning I have a walk around the garden, greet roses, tear the faded flower buds off, tie long branches, touch large flowers. 

Here are some garden roses, different in shape and color:

rose Folklore

rose Golden Showers

  rose The Fairy

rose Boys' Brigade

rose Margaret Merrill

rose Pristine

rose The Pride of England 

rose Red Cover

rose Red Velvet

I am pleased that many varieties of my roses are well tolerate rain. There were flower buds covered with spots of rain drops, but then flowers were well kept and did not wilt.   
Branches of rose Red cover are too thin having a lot of buds so all flowers were lying on the ground after rain. Yesterday I put a support and tied branches. Roses Yellow showers and Pristine have very strong stems and don't bend from the strong wind during a thunderstorm and buds don't fall down. 

What wonderful days in summer! Flowers are in bloom, veggies ripen, weeds grow, the weather is hot and the water in tanks is enough.

What about your summer days? Your garden?