Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day June 2016

 Welcome to Bloom Day at Clay and Limestone. It's still green time in my garden. That's the time between spring's extravagant display and summer's rough and tumble wildflower show, but there are some blooms to make a gardener and visitor smile.

Coreopsis 'Mercury Rising'

C 'Mercury Rising' and a dwarf Coreopsis grandiflora

Asclepias tuberosa

Arisaema dracontium and Autumn Fern

Echinacea tennesseensis 

Tradescantia virginiana

Gaura lindheimeri 'Siskiyou Pink'

Oenothera speciosa

Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus'

Rudbeckia hirta 'Chim Chiminee'

Elymus hystrix

Phlox x 'Wanda'

Crocosmia x cocosmiflora 'Orange Lucifer'

 Now make this garden blogger smile and pop over to May Dreams Gardens, where our delightful hostess, Carol, has set up the Mr Linky magic carpet ride to take you to more Bloom Day posts than you can imagine.

Happy Bloom Day to you all.
Gailxoxo

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Feel the Mercury Rising

Summer is sizzling in Middle Tennessee and the newest Coreopsis are hot, hot, hot!

C 'Mercury Rising' is blooming a velvety claret in my garden, some with white tips that I find quite striking.

'Mercury Rising’ is one of the new introductions by Darrell Probst in his ‘Big Bang’ series of hybrid coreopsis. I am crazy about them!

Yes, you heard me say I was crazy about Coreopsis hybrids and I am. Of course, my go to plants will almost always be species plants, but, there's plenty of room in my heart and garden for flowers that are attractive to pollinators, whether they are the straight species, a cultivar or a complicated hybrid. I believe that a healthy garden, one that's attractive to pollinators, has a lot of flowers.

In fact, my goal this past year has been to plant more flowers. Lots and lots of flowers that bees and other pollinators prefer.  

Flowers that are rich in pollen.

Flowers that are rich in nectar.

Colorful flowers that appeal to bees and hummingbirds.

Flowers that have a range of shapes and sizes to attract butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and even flies and beetles!

Flowers that are early bloomers and are pollinated by gnats and flies or the occasional honeybee out and about on warm days.

Flowers that bloom for a long time.

Flowers, trees and shrubs that are hosts for the larva of caterpillars and beneficial bugs.

'Mercury Rising' has been a good addition to my pollinator friendly garden. They're never, ever without some pollinator visitor and they bloom for a very long time. I don't know how you feel about this, but, those are very good reasons to include them in a native plant garden!

xoxogail

For more on Clay and Limestone's Coreopsis posts click on these links: Shift To Red, Cultivars in a Wildflower Garden and The Flower and the Bee

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.