Turning of the Season

 

Miniature rose.

As the mornings grow cooler with the approach of the equinox, summer is drawing to an end. It's a lovely time to admire the season's growth in all its fullness before fall begins to show its effects. My potted plants outdoors have reached their peak: the miniature rose, coleus and impatiens seem to be at the maximum of beauty. Many of my tropical begonias haven't been as floriferous as in other years, I can't explain it, except that plants have their cycles, and perhaps the extraordinary heat this year had something to do with it. Or, perhaps they need re-potting in fresh soil. There's always next year.

 

Red impatiens with begonias and coleus.

Hanging baskets on porch.

Plants in the porch

The hanging baskets on the porch are spilling over with multi-colored Calibrachoas and red Begonias, while the porch protects the other summering houseplants. The hibiscus is lush with yellow blossoms and the Cuban Rain tree (Brunfelsia nitida) is about to produce another round of its tubular flowers. I set out my Cattleya orchids on the porch this year, in hopes of some flower buds, but with the overnight temperatures now in the 40's, it's time to bring them into the house--I'll have to try again next year to see if some flowers can be coaxed.

Salvia 'Black and Blue' with mums and impatiens behind.

Salvia 'Wendy's Wish'

 

My 'Black and Blue' salvia didn't start to bloom until August this year, while the re-potted magenta salvia that Lili gave me (I think it may be a variety called  'Wendy's Wish') caught up with it and surpassed it in terms of flowers--interesting contrast in the color of the foliage and the flowers of the salvias. My Chrysanthemums are starting to bloom too, orange and dusty pink in the front, and the yellow ones I transplanted to the back beds.

 

Herb's bed and the Little Indians.

The deer really decimated my sedums this year, particularly the 'Neon' variety, but some of the 'Autumn Joy' have managed to produce some flowers; I must protect them better next spring so they can make progress. The blue Ageratum in Herb's bed was a hit with the butterflies--it's starting to fade now--the aster flowers will soon predominate, along with the pink Muhly grass.

 

New tree & shrubs on the west side.

 

I've been taking advantage of the cooler weather to start planting the trees and shrubs I'd bought  earlier in the year and had been holding in large pots, waiting for a propitious time to plant. The beautiful Korean fir 'Horstmann's Silberlocke' was planted on the west side of the house; it may reach  up to 20 feet, though I doubt it will get that tall, but will remain slim at the base. The new Ceanothus 'Gloire de Versailles'--barely visible in the bed behind the Zelkova tree's trunk--will eventually become a shrub some eight feet tall and six feet around, and hopefully filled with lavender flowers to delight butterflies and other pollinators.

Hardy begonias bloom under the cherry tree.

 

The hardy begonias are blooming under the cherry tree, while the dogwood's leaves are starting to turn bronzy, announcing the change of season. My Angel Trumpet still has some flowers, and perhaps a few more are in store before it's time to bring it in for the winter.

The front walk this week

Angel Trumpets (Brugmansia hybrid)

The other evening we had an unusual visitor--a hawk perched on one of the oaks in back. He stayed there for a good amount of time, long enough for me to grab my camera and take some photos. We later  identified it as a juvenile Cooper's hawk. The beautiful creature lingered for a while, then swooped low as he flew between our house and the neighbor's before disappearing.

 

An unusual visitor.

Dog Days Coming Around Again

Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia syphillitica)

Great Blue Lobelias

The dog days of August are coming around again, as they do every summer. After July's record high temperatures, they don't seem so awful, thus far.  My Great Blue Lobelias have put forth more flower spikes than ever this year, and they are gorgeous. The crabgrass and weeds are lush, too--I went out yesterday morning to weed around my veggie bed and try to tackle the worst of it in the back yard beds. Two hours later I was drenched in sweat, had one large plastic bag full of weeds, and feeling that I'd barely made a dent. It will take many more sessions to get the weeds under control, in as much as that is at all possible.

Black or Levant cotton (Gossypium herbaceum ' Nigrum')

My three black cotton plants grown from Lili's seeds are producing lots of flowers and bolls. The seeds were collected from the U.S. Botanic Gardens a number of years ago (I've seen this exotic annual selling for amazingly high prices in catalogs), and thanks to my daughter-in-law's green thumb, we've managed to keep this line going.

Black cotton flower bud.

The following spring the collected seeds went in my garden beds, and I shared some with my daughter-in-law. But with soil as poor as mine, only a few blooms and bolls with seeds developed.  Lili had better luck in her garden, and managed to get enough seeds to return the favor last year. The flowers are so lovely! Their beauty is hard to appreciate fully because they tend to hide under the foliage.

Black cotton flower

I've done paintings of both the Great Blue Lobelia and the black cotton--my Great Blue Lobelia painting sold last year, but I still have the watercolor of black cotton that I painted as Artist in Residence at the U.S. Botanic Garden in 2018. The specimen I worked from didn't have any flowers present so I introduced some from my photos taken of the ones I'd grown. Unfortunately, my photos didn't show the exact way the flower stem grows out from the middle of the leaf petiole, so I didn't get this detail quite right. I'm tempted to try another painting to correct my previous misunderstanding.

The back yard from the Badlands.

I took this photo of the back yard from the rearmost bed, the one we call "The Badlands" because the soil there was the worst imaginable. I remember well how little grew here and all along the perimeter of our lot at the edge of the woods. My idea for landscaping this area was to create a transition zone for the huge trees at the edge of the woods with a series of smaller understory trees. These three trees were the first I planted in the back yard: a dogwood, which revealed itself to be a C. kousa (Asian) type only this spring, when it finally produced its first blooms, a redbud (Cercis canadense), and behind that, a Seven Son Flower tree (Heptacodium miconoides) which is a native of China.

Seven Son Flower tree (Heptacodium miconoides)

Flowering clusters of the Seven Son Flower tree

The common name for this small tree comes from the observation that the number of flowers in each cluster is usually seven. I bought this Heptacodium as a sapling on sale for the amazing price of $6--the selling point for me wasn't just the price, but that the tree blossoms in August, at a time when little else in the garden is in bloom, the blossoms are fragrant, and it grows fast.  After planting it I've had time to appreciate its other attractive features--in autumn, after the flowers fade, the sepals turn pink, giving the appearance of a second flowering, and the bark peels in layers of different colors that make a wonderful display in winter.

Basket of begonia.

I didn't find any fuschias for the hanging baskets on the porch this year, so I bought this beautiful red Begonia instead. Calibrachoas in several colors went in the two other baskets, with the addition of some creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea') hanging over the edges. 

Hanging baskets of Calibrachoas on the porch.

The recent rains have brought out some new flowers: Crocosmia 'Lucifer's red flowers make a nice contrast against the fluffy blue Ageratum, with orange marigolds. The yellow Chrysanthemums are already starting to bloom, despite earlier de-budding. I'm curious to see how the 'Autumn Joy' sedum will look in the fall when the pink Muhly grass puts out some of its plumes--the deer have really chewed up the sedums!

Herb's bed.