Let’s go the alphabetical route this month, shall we?

I have two types of Acanthus. This one is spinosa. Note the spikiness of the leaves and the reddish-purple cast to the flower spikes. It is slightly hardier than mollis, whose leaves are large, shiny and lobed (a more likely inspiration for the decorative carvings on ancient columns). The plant I chose to photograph volunteered in its spot, and is much happier than those I tried to bend to my will in their placement.

Lysimachia ‘Alexander’ has variegated foliage coordinated with the grass behind it. Like its cousin the purple loosestrife, it wants to take over. Leaving a moat of mulch around it makes digging out aggressors fairly easy.

I call this Amy’s geranium. You have seen it before if you read my foliage post, but here it is in bloom. I might have thought the colors clashing, but Mom Nature knows her stuff, doesn’t she?

Robert Maplethorpe, move over.

A berm with minimal watering finally gave Eremurus the home it could settle into after much moving about.

‘Lucifer’ is the first of the crocosmias to bloom, and there is only the one, as apposed to drifts of the small orange variety yet to come.

A couple of Lysimachias, creeping Jenny and ‘Walkabout’, mingle in a pot at the feet of a tree waiting to grow strong enough to face life in the ground. I will be sorry when the time comes, because the combination at this moment is perfect.

Yellow was a color to which I gave a wide berth for years. Phygelius ‘Moonraker’ lured me in, and now yellow has found more bit parts than this director would have thought possible. Do you think there is a seductress out there plotting to do the same for pink?

Moth mullion is such an evocative name for this member of the Verbascum family, and highly appropriate, as it seems to hover here in the shade of the plume poppies.

When I walked around making a list of everything in flower, I counted 25 continuing bloomers and 21 that have come on since our last bloom day. That’s a lotta color and delight, but way more than you want to see here, even as lists.

I will close with something that is not blooming now. It went through its entire cycle in between the 15th of June and the 15th of July (very frustrating). Is it Pam who shuns red? I think so, but whoever you are, this bloom’s for you!