High Summer Garden

We've been enjoying a great summer color in the front perennial border this year. It's the second season of rehabilitation, so it's great to see the progress in such bold terms. Here's some pink yarrow:

I also love the delicate look of coreopsis, though it's really quite sturdy and drought tolerant:

I've tried to plant bee- and butterfly-friendly flowers, like these purple coneflowers:

And this bee balm. I love it when they grow double-decker flowers like this:

We've also got some areas that need improvement. Here's the front edge of the border, near the sidewalk:

I thought that the slope from the sidewalk up was gradual enough that we didn't need a retaining feature. Wrong. Mulch is constantly sliding off onto the sidewalk, and then there's always a convenient place for weeds to grow, like the crab grass in front of the stones at right. And we ran out of time/money/season last year to decide what we wanted to fill the front of the border with. As it turns out, it's a good thing we waited.

Grant did such a great job building the stone retaining wall, he's going to build a wall one-stone deep here, just enough to keep the mulch from sliding into the public walkway.

And I've ordered bulbs to plant this fall in the hope that we'll have a little show in the spring:

I'm fond of miniature daffodils, like these:

Wikimedia Creative Commons image, by Meneerke Bloem

And to mix with them I ordered some of these, Spring Beauty Scilla. This shade of blue is sort of unbelievable and miraculous in real life, especially after a bad winter:

Wikimedia Creative Commons image, by Magnus Manske

I also ordered some alliums. There's a corner of the border planted with sedums that is awfully boring until it gets going in the autumn, so maybe some big purple globes will help it out in the spring:

Wikimedia Creative Commons image, by Mike Peel

What do you love about your garden this summer?