Good Fall Is Here! Garden Bloggers Bloom Day September 2017

In my mind there are two kinds of fall: “Good” Fall and “Bad” Fall. Good Fall is what we have now. The leaves on the trees are starting to turn color, temperatures have moderated so that you want to work in the garden again, the colchicums have started blooming and the many native autumn-blooming plants (goldenrods and asters) are at their peak, summer annuals are still going strong and some perennials are having a second flush of bloom. (Bad Fall is after the leaves drop and it’s cold enough that they’d call it winter down South.)

The best that autumn has to offer

Instead of individual flower photos, I’d like to share some vignettes that illustrate the best autumn has to offer.

This spot is on the north side of our deck. In the back, left to right, ‘Black Negligee’ bugbane and Angelica gigas. In front of them, ‘Amber Moon’ astilbe foliage, an unknown heuchera, Let’s Dance Diva! hydrangea, ‘Hot Lips’ turtlehead and ‘Zephyr’ colchicum scattered throughout.

The Angelica gigas is visible from the deck and just covered with pollinators. Fascinating to watch.

I’ve been really happy with Let’s Dance® Diva! (Hydrangea macrophylla ‘SMHMLDD’). The flowers are huge and very pretty. And for a macrophylla, there were a lot of them.

But then, we did have a mild winter.

The ‘Zephyr’ colchicums and the ‘Hot Lips’ turtlehead really complement each other.

The Slope Garden was here when we moved in, and has always been a challenge for me because it’s not easy weeding on a slope. I’ve been adding plants that don’t need a lot of care–shrubs, ornamental grasses, ground covers, and bulbs–and have wound up with a Piet Oudolf/New Perennials type of garden bed. It looks terrific this time of year.

Here’s the far end of the uphill edge of the slope. In the back, I’ve got coneflower and a dwarf coneflower called ‘Butterfly Kisses’. Sandwiched between them are the spent flower stalks of Liatris spicata. The grass was here when we moved in, and I believe it’s ‘Morning Light’ miscanthus. Next to that is Phlox paniculata and ‘Invincibelle Spirit’ hydrangea. In front of them is Spirea ‘Crispa’ reblooming a bit. Below them all are Colchcium x byzantinum and a pink flowering lamium.

The ‘Butterfly Kisses’ and the species coneflower both wrap around the far side where you can’t see them. Eventually I want to divide them and continue them further along this edge.

Colchicum x byzantinum isn’t the most intensely colored colchicum, but it’s not as pale as it seems in the previous photo. This is more accurate.

Still at the top of the slope, but closer to the house, Japanese blood grass, ‘Cheyenne Sky’ switch grass to its right, and then Penstemon calycosus. The blood grass is “interplanted” with a “self-sown” aster. Behind the blood grass and to the right of the aster is upland ironweed (Vernonia glauca) and Culver’s root behind it. Ornamental onion seedheads scattered throughout.

Let’s face it–most country folk still think asters are a weed. I didn’t plant that aster, it just showed up. But have you noticed? If you like a plant, you “edit” its seedlings. If you don’t like a plant, you weed those seedlings out. I routinely pull aster seedlings, and whether I deliberately left that one or just missed it, I really couldn’t say.

New fall bloomer

I’m not going to show you again all the flowers I showed you last year blooming at this time, but I do want to point out one fall bloomer that I didn’t have last year.

Meet ‘Ruby Mound’ chrysanthemum. Ruby is just getting started, and I look forward to having it in my garden for many autumns to come.

Don’t forget these two exciting events!

(Well, they excite me!) Open Garden to view colchicums: My garden will be open to the public on September 30th so you can see a whole bunch of colchicums at one time, all labeled for easy identification. Details here. And I’m speaking at the Great Plants Symposium on October 6th along with three other fabulous speakers, including Kerry Mendez. Sign up here!

Inspired by the words of Elizabeth Lawrence, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year,” Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers from all over the world publish what is currently blooming in their gardens. Check it out at May Dreams Gardens.

from Cold Climate Gardening http://ift.tt/2x2cgZr