Late Summer Flowers

Red Dahlias.

Red Dahlia with hardy Begonia.

Late summer is a time of the year when most plants are finished with the season's growth, and setting seed. Fall bloomers are starting to show color in their buds, but in between, there are some plants that like to bloom. I bought this deep red Dahlia on sale a couple of years ago, and was so late in setting it out that it only produced a couple of flowers before the first frosts arrived. Last year I replanted the rhizome in a pot, hoping to be able to save it from early frosts, and it never produced any flowers--the pot was probably too small. So, this year I re-potted it in a much larger pot, and set it outside.

The Dahlia grew to handsome proportions, with several large stems, but these started to flop over. I tried staking it and succeeded only in breaking off one stem. You can't fight gravity after all, so I set it against the trunk of my cherry tree and allowed it to flop as it pleased; the reward is these two gorgeous flowers!

The hardy Begonias growing next to the Dahlia are now starting to bloom and will make a nice show in a week or two. My Begonia patch has been gradually expanding from one plant I brought from my garden in Columbia eight years ago and reliably re-seeds itself every year.

Clematis 'New Love'

Clematis 'New Love'

My recently acquired Clematis 'New Love' has put forth some flowering spikes. This is a new type of Clematis bred to form a small shrub rather than a vine, and has small bell-shaped purple flowers. It's not quite what I had expected, but very unusual and pretty anyway. We'll see if it manages to survive and continue to bloom in my garden.

Black cotton bolls

The black cotton plants are developing a number of large bolls that should be loaded with seeds for next year's garden. The coneflower seeds are ripe and the goldfinches have been having a banquet with them--they've been visiting regularly morning and evening.

Goldfinch on coneflower seedhead.

Goldfinch feasting on coneflower seeds.

Caryopteris 'Longwood Blue' and native mints

Caryopteris 'Longwood Blue' above, known as Blue Mist or Bluebeard plant is another late flowering shrub with feathery blue spikes. I combined my three plants with two native mints (whitish flowers on the right): hoary mountain mint (Pycnanthemum incanum), common mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum), and sea oat grass (Chasmanthium latifolium) in this bed.

Dog stinkhorn (Mutinus caninus)

The odd fungus known as Dog stinkhorn (Mutinus caninus) has made its reappearance in our yard recently. Herb came across these while he was mowing the lawn the other morning, and ran in to tell me about his strange sighting. I recognized it at once--we'd first encountered this weird fungus in Columbia, where it sprouted from a mulched flowerbed. Apparently the spores can be carried in the shredded bark mulch that is commercially available.

These strange mushrooms are members of the Phallaceae family, appropriately named as you can see. They attract flies and other insects that spread the spores. I find these weirdly fascinating--I may do a botanical illustration of one eventually.