(3) Summer’s Dog Days?

By August our garden is tired from weeks of heat and drought, and we–and the garden–count the days until fall re-energizes us. But early summer is a triumph of rowdy growth and boisterous color.

Fragrant confederate jasmine scrambles over our gazebo, crape myrtle bursts onto the landscape. Clethra and native Annabelle hydrangea brighten shady nooks. Pineapple guava, gardenia, St.johnswort, and persimmon seek the sun. Hydrangeas–All Summer Beauty and Pia, and lacecap Grayswood–are voluptuous in their bloom. Rudbeckia, phlox, daylilies, veronica, and heliopsis add their color to these portraits of summer.

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