It's hard to believe we're already at the end of July! Summer has been particularly hot this year in our upstate New York zone 6A garden, but despite the challenging conditions, so much of our landscape is still looking fresh and vibrant. This is exactly why we do all the hauling, digging, and planting—for moments like these when the garden truly comes alive.

Join us for a complete tour of our cottage garden as it looks right now, from the newest plantings that are just hitting their stride to established favorites that continue to impress year after year.

West Border: Where New Meets Established

Starting on the west side at the entrance to our long border, we're getting our first real look at how some newer perennials are performing. The absolute showstopper right now has to be our Bobblehead Allium. These are slightly taller and looser than the Serendipity alliums we have elsewhere in the garden, with blooms that have a more relaxed, naturalistic appearance.

Early morning garden tip: We timed this tour for early morning when the bees haven't fully awakened yet. Normally, these alliums literally sway from the weight of all the pollinators covering them—it's quite a sight!

The Bunny Battle Strategy

Down below, our Firefly Fuchsia Yarrow is thriving, but only because we remembered a crucial lesson: cage them! We use simple black chicken wire formed into loops around each plant. This prevents the rabbits from decimating them, which has happened in previous seasons.

This same strategy might finally allow us to grow echinacea (purple coneflowers) next year. We've been "echinacealess" up until now, but we're thinking these protective cages could be the solution.

Hydrangea Highlights in the Heat

Our Pinky Winky Prime is already showing why it might become Eric's favorite hydrangea of all time. Despite being planted just this past May and June, look at the enormous blooms on a plant that's not even three feet tall yet! This is still a very young, not-quite-established specimen, which makes its performance even more impressive.

Right beside it, the Let's Dance Rhythmic Blue hydrangeas (also new this season) have put on tremendous growth and are already producing their second flush of flowers. The continuous blooming habit is living up to its promise, and we're getting some truly spectacular blue colors—exactly the goal color we've been chasing in hydrangea blooms.

The Power of Self-Seeding

One of our garden's greatest success stories this year has been completely unplanned: Verbena bonariensis has reseeded itself throughout the property. We didn't plant a single seed this year, but we scooped up volunteers with handfuls of soil (no careful digging required) and redistributed them around the garden.

The result? Flowers for the entire rest of the season, and they'll drop seed to continue the cycle. It's a perfect example of working with nature rather than against it.

Annual Stars and Surprise Winners

Lobelia: The Azure Champion

We've been experimenting with four different Lobelia colors this season—lavender, lilac, pink, and Azure with a white eye called Blue Pearl. The clear winner has been Azure. It has excellent habit, beautiful color, non-stop blooms, and has held up tremendously well in summer heat and rain. While Blue Pearl tends to splay, Azure maintains its composure.

The Flavor-Forward Rose

Our Flavor Paired Rose is living up to its name with a delicate baby shell pink color and an amazing fragrance that actually tastes slightly of pear. As a young plant, it's showing some splaying tendencies, but we anticipate stronger stems as it becomes established.

Containers and Creative Solutions

The Indigo River Success Story

Remember Eric's initial skepticism about Christopher's Supertunia Mini Vista Indigo River idea for the pondless waterfall area? Well, the results speak for themselves. The container is completely filled in, creating exactly the eye-catching focal point that was envisioned. Sometimes garden negotiations really do pay off!

Learning from Water Patterns

We're discovering how water moves through our pondless waterfall area, with some fascinating results. The Lavender Lace Cuphea we planted to replace struggling fiber optic grasses is growing exceptionally well where water naturally leeches up into the soil. It's a perfect example of observing your garden's microclimates and working with them.

Trees Taking Shape

Our Ice Dragon Japanese Maple from Iseli is putting out beautiful new growth, and because it's a weeper, we have exciting opportunities ahead for shaping it. Over time, we can create a drapey effect over the waterfall rocks that will help control algae and create a more wrapped, integrated look.

Its companion, Arctic Jade Japanese Maple (also from Iseli), offers that gorgeous chartreuse-green foliage that will become quite large over time. Both trees give us wonderful opportunities for artistic shaping and limbing up as they mature.

The Berm: Our Spring and Fall Star

While the berm isn't having its moment of peak glory right now (that comes in spring and fall), it's still providing excellent structure with our eight Green Giant Arborvitaes creating a perfect backdrop against the wooded area.

The Storm Cloud Amsonia is contributing beautiful olive-colored foliage all summer long, and our Little Lime hydrangeas are coming along nicely. After a few years of concern about our Black Lace Elderberry (we thought it might need to come out), we discovered it was actually being eaten by a groundhog. Now that the groundhog has moved on, it's finally growing and looking great.

Practical note: The berm is our only garden bed not on drip irrigation, but with our newly installed underground hose bib, that could change next season if we choose.

Peak Performers in the Heat

Hydrangea Success Stories

Our Invincible Sublime hedge continues to be absolutely spectacular. This smooth leaf hydrangea that blooms on new wood produces green flowers that actually get greener as they age. After just three years in the ground (planted in 2022), they've reached full size and provide incredible impact.

The Continuous Bloomer Revolution

Sky View hydrangea deserves special mention as our first truly foolproof, low-maintenance, continuous-blooming big leaf hydrangea. Despite being in full sun and on drip irrigation, it keeps producing flowers—first flush, second flush, and third flush coming up. It's a true success story for those of us who have coveted big blue hydrangea flowers in cooler zones.

Container Garden Revelations

This year we put our containers on drip irrigation, and the results have been transformative. Some standout discoveries:

The Magic Color-Changer

Super Bells Magic Double Grapefruit has become a conversation starter. The flowers emerge yellow, then turn pink as the sun hits them, creating a multicolored effect that's quite remarkable.

Cupcake Containers

Our Pink Cashmere Supertunia containers have become what we call "giant cupcakes" when in full bloom. The only downside is that they cycle in and out of bloom, but when they're on, they're spectacular.

Late Summer Stars Getting Ready

Some plants are just gearing up for their big moment:

• Fall in Love Sweetly Anemone - These are worth the wait, picking up steam just when everything else is saying "I'm done"
• Native Ironweed - Should be flowering soon with tall, dramatic purple blooms
• Prairie Princess Vernonia - Proven Winners' more compact version of ironweed
• Summerific Hibiscus - Getting ready for their late summer show

The Reality Check: What's Not Working

Not everything in the garden is perfect, and we believe in honest reporting:

• Seaside Serenade varieties continue to underperform with minimal flowering
• Tough Stuff hydrangeas died to the ground and aren't blooming (though the foliage recovery is impressive)
• Some Let's Dance Lovable specimens didn't make it through winter
• Brandywine Viburnum has had excessive flopping issues after summer storms

The Numbers Game

When we walked the entire garden for our recent hydrangea count, we discovered we have 191 hydrangeas throughout the property. While that might sound excessive to some, each variety serves a purpose and contributes to our extended bloom season from spring through fall.

Looking Ahead: August and Beyond

As we move into August, we're anticipating:

• Summerific Week celebrating the hibiscus series
• Second and third flushes from our re-blooming hydrangeas
• Late summer perennials hitting their peak
• Planning for fall garden transitions

Garden Lessons from Peak Summer

This July tour reinforces several key principles we've learned over the years:

Water is everything. Our drip irrigation systems and strategic watering have made all the difference during this hot summer.

Work with self-seeders. Plants like Verbena bonariensis that naturalize themselves often do better than our carefully planned installations.

Give new plants time. Many of our spring plantings are just now showing their true potential.

Observe and adapt. Learning how water moves through your landscape, where microclimates exist, and how plants actually perform (versus what we expect) leads to better garden decisions.

Embrace the cycle. Some plants are finishing their moment while others are just beginning theirs—and that's exactly how a garden should work.

The garden is constantly teaching us, challenging us, and rewarding us. Even in the heat of peak summer, there's beauty, discovery, and anticipation for what's coming next.

Want to see all of these garden moments in action? Check out our hydrangea rating video where we walk through many of these same plants with honest assessments of what's working and what's not.

Thanks for growing with us!