September Bloom Day

Blue Lobelias in east garden.

All-whilte Lobelia.

 

A very wet August brought us respite from the heat and drought--I recorded over 11 inches of rain during the month of August this year--and my garden seems to have revived to nearly normal. Every 15th of the month is Bloomday, hosted by Carol Michel's May Dreams Garden blog, so welcome to my September garden: let's take a look at what's blooming.

The deer ate back the buds of most of my Blue Lobelias, but after the rains the plants recovered enough to offer a nice array of flowers. They really set off the area of my east garden where I've been trying to create a shady woodland. I had just pruned the Japanese maple tree which I grew from a 6" seedling twelve years ago when I took this photo. I even found one all-white Lobelia in there--a sport or mutant? Lovely in any case! 

 I have two other Japanese maples in my little woodland, as well as a Carolina Silverbell tree and a Pagoda dogwood. The bed is finally starting to look somewhat as I had envisioned, but will need a few more years' growth to achieve fullness.

 

The east garden miniature woodland

 

Also on the east side of the house, my  Viburnum 'Brandywine' is making a wonderful display as its berries turn from pink to blue.

 

Viburnum 'Brandywine' berries

Moving on towards the back yard, the "Autumn Joy' Sedum is looking nice next to the wild blue Ageratum--unfortunately deer are very fond of this Sedum so it must be kept protected or there would be nothing left. I call this the "Herb bed" because my husband Herb dug the first part of it. Our hummingbirds love the red Salvia as well as the Brazilian Salvia 'Black and Blue.'

 

                Sedum 'Autumn Joy' with blue Ageratum and Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster'

Red Salvia 'Windwalker Royal Red'

 

Behind this bed I have a witchhazel variety named 'Diane' flanked by two Viburnums I grew from seed collected at Brookside Gardens in Maryland--by the look of the leaves I think these may be Leatherleaf Viburnum. And one of these has developed some flower buds--unseasonably, it seems to me. I'm curious to see what the flowers and subsequent fruit will look like. It may reveal more about the particular species.

 More interesting is to note the chewed-up leaves. A number of clearwing hummingbird moths visited my garden this summer, and Viburnum is the host plant for the caterpillar of this moth, so I hope they are feeding on my Viburnums and will make my garden their home.

 

Leatherleaf Viburnum? budding.

 

I recently planted one of three Gaultherias I bought this past spring under the witchhazel tree after treating the soil with acidifier. Let's hope it survives and prospers. The alkalinity of the soil here can be a problem for many acid-loving plants.

 

Prairie sage and wild sunflowers.

A lovely color combination found in the back-most bed I call "The Badlands" was this blue sage (Salvia azurea) with some late-blooming native sunflowers. My display is still very skimpy, but hopefully will grow fuller with time if I can get the deer to stop eating it. Deer aren't supposed to eat salvias, but they will browse it if nothing else is available, and the sunflowers too.

 

Beautyberry (Callicarpa dochotoma 'Early Amethyst')

My two Beautyberry 'Early Amethyst' bushes are displaying their lovely berries and haven't been too badly chewed by the deer. And there are still some flowers on my butterfly bushes, they're finishing as other fall flowers come into bloom.

 

Butterfly bush 'Miss Molly'

I spent the past two days cleaning up a bed on the west side of the house--the crabgrass was almost up to my knees!--and while doing so, I transplanted a lovely wild purple aster that I'd found in the very back of the yard near my neighbor's fence. The aster was so tall I had to cut off the top so it wouldn't pull out of the ground, but hopefully it will recover and show even better next year. This one was a volunteer, I think it came from seeds collected in Warm Springs, VA, a few years back. Some times these volunteers can be wonderful additions to a native garden.

 

Purple aster with Caryopteris shrub in the west bed.

Also on the west garden, my Ceanothus 'Gloire de Versailles' has recovered from the browsing and is producing some blooms. This plant is a hybrid of the native New Jersey tea plant (Ceanothus americanus) with the California native lilac. Its flowers are fragrant.

 

Ceanothus 'Gloire de Versailles'

In the front yard on the west, my Abelia "Panoramic Color Radiance' did not get too badly eaten this year, and has some lovely blooms.

 

Abelia 'Panoramic Color Radiance'

The dogwood tree in front of the house is starting to show its fall foliage. And the deer left me a few hardy begonias under the cherry tree to flower and re-seed themselves, only because  of timely spraying with repellent.

 

Dogwood tree and front walk.

Hardy begonias.

Some of my potted plants are looking good too--the white Heliotrope on the front walk is lovely, as are the porch hanging baskets.

 

White Heliotrope.

Fuchsia in hanging basket.

Porch hanging basket.

The tuberous Begonia in the hanging basket on the back deck is still blooming but starting to fade, while the Salvia 'Black and Blue' is holding its own. The humming birds love this plant and we've had quite a few of them visiting our deck. Most of them don't seem to be bothered by our close proximity and feed while we're there, but a few are very shy.

Tuberous Begonia on the back deck.

Salvia 'Black and Blue'

I hope you've enjoyed this stroll through my garden on a lovely September day. Can't wait to see what the Autumn Equinox will bring!

Late Summer Rains and Sightings

Viburnum 'Brandywine' with rough green snake.

 

Close-up of berries.

 

This past week we've had a couple of big storms bring a lot of wind and rain--yesterday's thunderstorm dropped 1.67" of rain on my still somewhat parched garden. These late summer rains have brought out some fascinating sights that I wanted to share.

Let's start with the Viburnum 'Brandywine' berries--this is my favorite stage as they are turning pink, with a few blues here and there. Eventually they will all ripen to dark blue and then black. I took the first photo and didn't notice that there was a little green snake crawling on the branch--it wasn't until I downloaded the photos and looked at them on my computer screen that I realized that what I'd taken for a blade of grass was actually a green snake!

As I understand it, these rough green snakes (Opheodrys aestivus) eat caterpillars and other small insects, and he might have been feasting on clearwing hummingbird moth caterpillars. Viburnum is one of the host plants for this moth, and I've seen quite a few of the moths here this summer nectaring on the Asian butterfly bush. I've seen the caterpillars on previous years, but not recently. I wonder if that could be the reason why? 

 

Clearwing hummingbird moth on Butterfly bush (photo taken by David Maza).

 

The abundant rain has stimulated my 'Natchez' crape-myrtle to produce more blooms than ever before, and my Abelia 'Panoramic Color Radiance' has been sufficiently spared by the deer to offer a few blooms too.

 

Crape Myrtle 'Natchez'

Abelia 'Panoramic Color Radiance' is blooming.

 

The wild Petunias planted a couple of years ago keep getting eaten by the deer, but recently one of the three plants managed to offer enough flowers to appreciate its beauty. This year I grew some Mignonette (Reseda odorata) from seed. Its flowers aren't exactly showy but the scent is supposed to be wonderful. I've only detected a slight perfume, but the bees love it, so I hope it will re-seed itself for next year.

 

Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis)

Mignonette (Reseda odorata)

Another pleasant surprise to see was that one of the two Viburnums that I grew from seed collected at Brookside Gardens had some flower buds--my Viburnums appear to be of the Leatherleaf variety or perhaps a hybrid of them--Brookside has quite a variety of Viburnums growing in that area. I'm curious to see what the flowers will be like. Let's hope the deer won't devour them--they seem to be blooming unseasonably, but some Viburnums do bloom at this time of the year.

Viburnum flower buds.

The deer left me a few buds of the bush Clematis 'True Love' to enjoy--the color is lovely!

Clematis 'True Love'

My double flowering quince has produced a few out of season blooms, and other summer flowers are re-blooming after being cut back:  Verbascum 'Southerm Charm' and a red-hot poker.

Double-flowering quince

Verbascum 'Southern Charm' rebloom.

Red-hot Pokers reblooming.

With autumn just around the corner, the Japanese Anemone 'Honorine Jobert' is developing flower buds. It lives under a protective cloche which I removed to take the photograph, but any buds that protrude from the cloche get eaten.

 

Anemone 'Honorine Jobert'

The deer overlooked a few of the blue Lobelias this year--in better years I've had a gorgeous display of these native flowers which have spread over this east bed. Maybe next year?

Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) in the east bed.

At last, my Salvia 'Black and Blue' is blooming! This hummingbird favorite is usually grown in a pot along the front walk, and I'd never known deer to nip it before, but this year they started to munch on it at the height of the drought, so I moved it to the deck to keep it out of their reach. The pruning set it back a bit, so it only started to bloom this past week, several weeks later than usual.

 

Brazilian Salvia 'Black and Blue'

 

I just love the color!

Late Summer Flowers

Salvia 'Black and Blue'

 

It's hard to believe it's already August! On Monday the current hot and dry spell broke with a storm that brought a decent amount of rain--what a difference it made! With this drought, the deer and rabbits have so little to eat that they've devoured most of my flowers this summer. Repellents and sprays don't seem to be doing much to dissuade them this year, and they've attacked plants that had been overlooked before.

So, I've been doing all I can to keep my plants out of their reach. The most sought out of potted plants have moved up onto the porch or the back deck. But of the other perennials in my yard, impossible to move, very few have escaped. 

Fortunately Salvias are not to the critters' taste and the hummingbirds love them. I saw one hummer early this morning feasting on the 'Black and Blue' and the magenta Salvia along my front walk.

 

Stella d'Oro daylilies.

I hardly saw any daylilies during their first flush of bloom in June--the deer devoured all of the buds--but now, one late bud of the Stella d'Oro lilies seems to have escaped their notice. A few others, like the pink-flowered Queen Anne's Lace (Ammi majus 'Dara') that I'd planted last year, have apparently also escaped their notice. I have plenty of the white-flowered wild variety in this part of the garden, but this is the first pink-flowered one I've seen.

 

Ammi majus in pink.

Queen Anne's Lace and deep pink phlox.

There isn't much in the way of flowers at a time when my garden should have at least a few, but here's a some.

 

Ageratum.

It's been too dry for the Ageratum, but some plants are blooming in the more sheltered beds. The Anise Hyssop I grew from seed has finally grown enough to present some blooms, although this morning I saw that rabbits had eaten some of my recently planted specimens.

 

Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)

The deer or rabbits also nipped most of the buds of my blue Lobelias, which usually bloom profusely at this time of the year. I'm hoping some will regrow enough to make a decent display, particularly if we get some more rain.

 

Blue Lobelias starting to bloom.

The Abelia 'Panoramic Color Radiance' has hung on only because of my watering, and is offering a few blooms now. Some of the leaf stems seem to be reverting to the ordinary leaf color rather than the variegated, but that can happen sometimes with these new hybrids or cultivars.

 

Abelia 'Panoramic Color Radiance'

The mint family does seem to be immune to browsing and the slender-leaved mountain mint is no exception. But the rabbits have been munching on the bee balm next to it, which they haven't done before.

 

Mountain mint (Pycnantheum tenuifolium)

With so little bloom what shall I photograph for the August Bloom Day coming up?

August Monsoon

Back yard during a thunderstorm.

 

After the prolonged drought of the past few months, August seems to be turning the tide with three powerful thunderstorms within one week, each dropping over an inch of rain. It's almost like the summer monsoons in the Southwest at this time of the year. Out there, the heat builds up during the day to give rise to huge thunderheads that drop incredible amounts of rain on the parched land.

The winds were so strong at the height of one of these storms, that our new cast aluminum bench (a corner of which shows on the lower right hand corner) got blown clear across from one side the deck to the other! The bench was originally by the railing all the way over to the left. Many of my houseplants summering on the deck were thrown off my new plant stands, some were even knocked clean out of their pots! Fortunately, the damage isn't permanent, they'll recover in a day or two.

 

Salvia 'Black and Blue'

Everything in my garden was looking pretty sad before the rains, but now everything is starting to revive. The Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue' just started to bloom. My Australian red lime has set some fruit, two nice-sized ones from the past winter and a few more this summer; I presume a change in color will indicate when the limes are ready to be harvested.

Australian red lime.

The deer decimated so many plants that I don't have much in the way of seasonal flowers such as the usual black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia)--this year's display is quite poor compared to last year's. 

 

Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm')

Impatiens in the front bed.

I planted these red and white Impatiens in the front bed after the Narcissus leaves began to dry and wither, but either deer or rabbits ate the Impatiens, so there 's not as much coverage as I'd hoped for. With the recent rains, these may yet grow fuller before the end of the season.

Herb's bed and the Little Indians

 

Every year I strip the early buds from the Chrysanthemums, but they still end up blooming much too early. This year I didn't touch the buds at all, and as you can see, the mums, the yellow ones in particular, are starting to bloom right now. The zinnias are still going strong too--I'll definitely be planting more next year, now that I know deer won't bother them.

 

'Benary's Giant' zinnias.

Great blue Lobelias (Lobelia syphillitica)

 My great blue Lobelias have started to put on their annual show--this location seems to be to their liking and they multiply more each year. The 'Pink Posie' Pentstemons under the 'Amber Ghost' Japanese maple are also blooming well this year. The Caryopteris 'Longwood Blue,' on the other hand, seem to have suffered greatly from the drought, and don't have many flowers, at least thus far.

 

'Pink Posie' Pentstemons.

Caryopteris 'Longwood Blue' in bed behind 'Pink Posie" Pentstemons.

 

I can only hope that the rains will continue and the fall blooming season won't be as disappointing as the summer has been.