By Cathy Clary
It’s hot as Hades here in the hollow with that old devil sun wielding an increasingly fiery scepter. But gardeners are nothing if not optimistic, ever looking for ways to wrest the best from their lots. Even as we teeter on the wrong side of global warming, we seek comfort in our little Edens. This summer it’s a long search.
The front porch border is at its worst: deer-mangled, shamefully unkempt and bare in patches where the Summer Snowflake bulbs (Leucojum) have died away. Now that drought is official, I’m not planting anything new or watering unless it wilts before my eyes. I used a can for a few weeks after planting summer annuals; every week or so I give a deep water to everything with the wand attachment on the hose.
The specimen ‘Royal Standard’ hosta, star of the garden, has been savagely munched despite repeated sprays of a long-trusted brand of repellent. Its late-season 4-foot flower stalks have yet to emerge, so there’s hope yet, but it will be a ragged show. A few desultory cleomes and nicotiana have sprouted from last year’s random seeds and I added two new Bergamots (a “nativar,” Monarda fistulosa “Miss Claire”) and half a dozen culinary dill in May along with second choice dwarf zinnias and globe amaranth.
The clear, pink-tufted clusters of the Monarda and pale green umbels of the dill are hands-down pollinator favorites. The re-seeded nicotiana is old-fashioned “White Cloud,” which flags during the day but brightens to pure white in the twilight and wafts a heavy musk that blends with the Sweetbay Magnolia and last of the Regale Lilies. Bees, flies and wasps zoom throughout the day; sphinx moths flutter in the dark.
They hardly give a passing glance to the dwarf zinnias and “Little Gnome” globe amaranths I was forced to buy because somehow the horticulture market has shrunk to miniature plants for tiny gardens. Where is the old species Globe Amaranth (Gomphrena globosa) that makes a nicely rounded 2-foot mound; or the elegant, long-stalked Zinnia elegans “State Fair Mix”? If you want it, you must start it yourself.
A whiff of Japanese Honeysuckle—now a feared invasive— takes me back to the time when there was no separation between us and the garden. It was all our playground then, a place for tag in the twilight, chasing lightning bugs and drinking nectar. We would slit the ends of the flower tubes with our fingernails, carefully pull out the stamens through the bottom and taste each sweet drop.
We’d drape ourselves in clover chains—necklaces, bracelets, coronets—and fashion hollyhock dolls with a pin stuck up the middle of an upturned blossom for the skirt with a bud pinned on top for its head. It’s worth it to grow a hollyhock just for this purpose, aside from its being the quintessential exclamation point to any cottage garden border, challenged only by the giant sunflower. You need full sun and space for both, preferably up against a south or west wall. The sunflower is annual; hollyhock biennial, started from seed taking two seasons to bloom. Happy, they might live a bit longer (as will we all), but you will have to replace them every few years for a good display.
Hot weather is a boon for gardenias. Cape Jasmine, the classic creamy prom-night bloom, Gardenia jasminoides, can take temps no lower than 10 degrees F. A sheltered nook in the hot, southern ‘L’ of a house is best; keep a sheet handy for draping it on iffy nights. The cultivars “Frost Proof” and “Kleim’s Hardy” are listed for Zone 7, which means they can endure temperatures as low as 0 degrees F. “Kleim’s Hardy” forms a simple, five-petaled star-shaped flower while “Frost Proof” retains the soda fountain double swirl of the straight species.
My favorite summer scent of all is the powder puff smell of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), cloying the air like a swarm of sweet little old ladies. We are lucky enough to have it colonizing a large swath of our meadow, blooming in drooping umbels of dusty rose pink. If you have a hot, sunny spot, you can accommodate its cousin the bright orange butterfly weed, A. tuberosa (unfortunately not scented), the larval food source of the monarch butterfly; syriaca is more suited to larger, moister naturalized areas.
As dusk descends, the harsh glare of day and the gardener’s unforgiving eye melt away. The glider and a chilled glass of Prosecco beckon, front row seat for the bustling, towered city the flowers make. The first few squeaks settle into a rhythm, the metal arms are cool to the touch, and as we sway back and forth in the warm summer air, we breathe in the fragrance of the night.
