The Ironstone Cottage Tea Room & Garden
  • Home
white rose cluster
The Ironstone Cottage LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.  You don't pay more for anything you purchase through my links, but I will receive a small commission.

July Garden Update

8/14/2019

1 Comment

 
July was a far better month for the garden than we had any right to expect.  We had more rain than we're used to seeing, and the Japanese beetles were sparse this year.
Picture
Scentimental rose
The roses mostly took a break, but they did start putting on blooms toward the end of the month.  Scentimental dropped all of his leaves, and I though he was going to just give up and die on me.  After some anti-fungal spray and a little Espoma rose food, he bounced back, put on new leaves and even produced a couple of nice blooms.
Picture
The Generous Gardener rose
The new David Austin roses I planted in April have really impressed me.  I'd have been happy to just see them get established and survive the summer, but The Generous Gardener actually bloomed!
Picture
Pink/red Rose of Sharon
The Rose of Sharon that I planted last summer are still quite small, but they are healthy and they both produced a few nice blooms.  One is bright pink, and the other has produced both pink and solid white blossoms on the same plant.  Weird.
Picture
Tall pink lilies
The pink lilies did something interesting.  A few got really tall (like 5 feet!) before putting on blooms in June.  The rest, which I really do think were from the same bag of bulbs, got not quite so tall, and bloomed in July.  I'm not sure why, but I'll take it!
Picture
Purple Clematis
The purple clematis (no idea of name, I lost the tags) gave several rounds of blooms through May, June and July. 
We had perfect weather, in many respects, for maximum blooms this year.  I only had to water the flowers about 3 times this entire summer.  That's a bit too much rain to avoid fungus problems with the roses, but everything else loved it.  Especially the hydrangeas.  Once those things start blooming, they just keep going!  There are pink hydrangeas in the garden that opened in May, and still have the blooms on them!  There are a few stinkers however, that didn't bloom at all this year.  Since I lost the tags on many of them, we'll have to watch and see if maybe they just didn't have enough old wood to produce blooms, or if they might need some pruning.
Picture
Huge purple dahlia
Picture
medium pink dahlia
The real stars of July were the dahlias though.  I planted a couple of giant purple dahlias this spring, and they've really done well.  People ask almost every day what those huge purple flowers by the birdbath are.  I also planted a smaller, deep red dahlia this spring.  The pink/lavender dahlias that I planted last spring, and which I forgot to dig up in the fall, wintered over and are still going strong.  All of them have to be staked and tied up to keep the flower stalks from falling over and breaking off, but they're totally worth the trouble.
Picture
New corner bed
We extended the front flower beds and planted some hydrangeas, wiegela, snowball bush and spirea in the corner.  I'll fill in with some mums this fall, and add some bulbs for spring.  And of course, if/when I find good deals on flowers I love next summer, I'll add them too.  You can build a beautiful garden for not a huge investment if you have some patience.
1 Comment
Sheila Carroll link
8/28/2019 04:33:03 am

The pictures were such a lovely visual expression of the beauty that surrounds not only the grounds of your tea room but the beauty that continues when you walk through the door. Your establishment is a bit of heaven on earth. I so enjoy not only the fabulous food but the sweet sweet spirit and innocence of the precious children that tend to needs.
Thank you so much for making amazing memories for so many!

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Melanie Holsti believes in the power of good food and hospitality to change lives.

    Categories

    All
    Dessert Recipes
    Green Teas
    Herbal Tisanes
    Herb & Fruit Tisanes
    In The Garden
    Shop Updates
    Tea Room Remodel
    Tea Tutorials

    RSS Feed

      Join our email list and be the first to know about menu changes, upcoming events and new teas.

    Sign me up!

    Archives

    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018

214 North Greene Ave., Mountain Grove Mo

We are located 2 doors north of the  Mountain Grove Public Library, or directly across the street-- to the East, of City Hall.

  • Home