My favorite season of the year is the season that is just starting. If I have to pick a favorite season, I usually say fall, because the rich colors and woodsy smells of autumn stir in me a restless melancholy for the lost days of summer. I love the flat, cold light of winter days and the long, frigid nights. Spring brings an awakening of joy and new energy to start digging in the garden.
But summer… summer is a special time of long, hot days and sitting on the front porch as dusk falls, watching dragonflies and little bats gobble mosquitoes, waiting for lightning bugs to rise out of the ground and flicker toward the night sky.
As I write this week’s column, it is the afternoon of the Summer Solstice. For me, as a gardener, the first day of summer marks the point at which I move from fussing over the delicate spring flowers to being thrilled at the explosion of colors that summer perennials offer.
This spring, we added three Coreopsis verticillata “Zagreb,” to one of the beds. Zagreb i...