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| Swamp Sunflower (Helianthus angustifolia) with Russian sage (Perovskia). |
As a break from the postings of my Montana adventures, today I wanted to post a bit about this year's late summer and fall garden and share photos of some of my flowers. Most of my plant purchases from late spring (and even one from the previous fall) had been held over in large pots during the summer, since my travels and the merciless biting bugs had not allowed much time for planting them earlier.
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| Plants awaiting new homes. |
This fall has been the warmest since we moved to this area, with very spotty rain, so the first focus of my fall gardening frenzy was to get all these plants in the ground. This meant expanding my flower beds considerably to accommodate them. I'd bought a dwarf butterfly bush (Buddleia) with pale lilac flowers and a spirea (was it coincidence? I didn't know I would encounter so many of these plants in Glacier N.P., but now this plant will remind me of those others).
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| The Little Indians border in October. |
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| Planting the Buddleia and the Spirea. |
I decided to put the Buddleia and the Spirea towards the back of the Little Indians bed, near the Asclepias, in hopes of attracting more butterflies to the back yard. The Aster laevis which had been eaten to the ground by deer the previous year, finally bloomed, thanks to the garlic spray I've been using, as well as the camouflage the Asclepias provided. Finally, a few butterflies are starting to show up!
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| Buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia) on Itea bush. |
This shot looking at the east side of the house gives a good idea of the expansion that has taken place during this year's growing season. If only I could speed up the growth more! But Nature has its limits, even with lots of fertilizer.
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| The east garden. |
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| Viburnum 'Brandywine' with Gaillardias |
I'm partial to the berries of this variety of Viburnum 'Brandywine' at the stage where the berries start turning pink. As the season progresses the berries gradually turn blue.
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| Backyard bed with pink dogwood and hibiscus. |
The bed I laid out in the back yard last year is developing nicely--the pink Kousa dogwood 'Rosy Teacups' has gained a couple of feet in height and width (with protection from deer depredations), but the star of this summer was the pink hibiscus that our neighbors gave me, grown from seed from their plants.
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| Pink Hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutus) |
Such a knock-out color! This variety of hardy hibiscus can be deceptive--it dies back over the winter and is very late to start growth in the spring, so for a while I thought it was dead. Good thing I left it alone, it eventually re-grew. I like it so much I bought another one this fall, a white variety with a red center. They're wonderful flowers that blossom at a time when very little else is blooming.
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| Pink Asian lily with Bouteloua grass clump |
This bed was also planted with about a dozen Asiatic lilies, but I'm afraid I got this bargain purchase in the ground a bit late, and they didn't grow until late in the summer--one plant actually bloomed in late September, but the rest, despite a few buds, were too late to open before the first frost cut them down a week ago. The ornamental grass Bouteloua 'Blonde Ambition' in front of the lily is another plant that has been struggling in my garden, but it seems to be making some progress. Perhaps next summer I'll see an explosion of bloom in this bed. There's still so much empty space to fill...
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| Back yard looking east. |
To remedy that I bought another bunch of native perennials at the Arboretum's Arborfest, including more of the lovely Swamp Sunflower, and asters. I'm currently working to plant those, along with more spring flowering bulbs, before it gets too cold to work outside.
