Though autumn has officially arrived, the garden has very little fall color. But what's there, is fairly dramatic. This is one of my favorite pond plants: Penthorum seloides aka Star fruit.
Ilex verticillata 'Berry Poppins' living up to her name.
Seedheads of Paeonia obvata var. alba.
Sunny, temps in the 90F°+ range and dry as a bone. Though I have a stash of plants that need to get into the ground, I am doing nothing but watering; trying to keep old and new alive and well.
I planted Allium 'Millenium' late last year and this is it's first season of bloom. Dense flower heads of a most attractive cheery, cherryish pink.
Angelica gigas was just put in last week. The bees have been all over it.
I am having such serious rabbit damage in my garden this summer that I have been quite demoralized. So I went looking for a bright spot to lift my spirits. This is what I found: Begonia grandis on fire from the late afternoon sun.
I tried this plant three times before it finally decided to stay! Maybe that's because it's a Zone 6 plant and I never realized it when I bought it. But it is increasing beautifully and seems totally happy. So I added another one on the opposite side of the garden last summer and it seems equally happy.
We are having a heat and humidity wave but the rain keeps passing us by. I picked a quick bouquet of Heuchera flowers. I have a number of plants of this variety but haven't a clue as to which one it is. I only know it produces more flowers than any other one I grow.
I brought in this broken branch from one of my species Peonies indoors because I love the seed pods. They start out looking like green jester's caps.
To my surprise, it opened up to display its dramatic interior after a few days in water in the house. The red seeds are the infertile ones.
My Rosa glauca only got flowers on one long cane. I really grow it for the foliage and it never got Japanese beetles this summer, so I am more than happy with this modest display of rose hips coloring up. The foliage in this photo is from the Peony and Hellebore growing beneath the rose.
The early warmth followed by frosty nights put paid to the flower buds on my lovely swath of Lilium martagon 'Mrs. R. O. Backhouse.' Only two stems are blooming out of that big patch in the garden on the south side.
The same patch last year.
But L. martagon 'Claude Shride', along the driveway on the north side, are looking as good as ever.
I did not publish this yesterday on June Bloom Day as I took these photos a week ago. Hot weather, wind and rain has brought an end to most of what you see here. Our late frosts seem to have put an end to the buds of many of my lilies, so the garden is not as floriferous as I was expecting it to be.
Roses and no bugs so far. I grow this mainly for the foliage, but it will be fun to have rose hips come autumn.
A once in a life time event: Flowers on my Helleborus foetidus. Not as dramatic as the photos I always see; but I'm not complaining.
Alliums under a golden Dawn Redwood. These have unexpectedly reappeared after an absence of many years.
This Iris was planted by the family that built our house in the 1950s.
An Iris that doesn't mind its feet getting wet.
Clelmatis 'Guernsey Cream'
Peony 'Golden Angel' has golden early foliage and pale yellow flowers but these have faded to white.
Peony 'Burnished Bronze' had a record number of buds which opened in 24 very hot hours. And then were dispatched by heavy rains.
We had a bout of cooler weather so I have been digging up, moving, adding and rearranging in the garden. Lots of fun and a great way to take a break from the world.
Yes, I really did plant this daylily to echo the gold lichens on this rock.
But the chives and Thalictrum color theme is a happy accident.
Euphorbia wulfenii is a mediterranean plant for Zone 7. No way it will grow in my Z. 4-5 garden. But I have been crazy for it since the first time I ever saw a picture of it in an English garden.
It's only a couple of years after planting Euphorbia palustris at the edge of the upper pool that I realized how similar the effect is to that of E wulfenii.
An unexpected but very pleasant surprise.
Our dangerously low overnight temperatures mean that all my special plants are being protected with bins and boxes. Tonight looks like our last day with a freezing overnight low temp, 32°F.
I have been holding all the plants that have arrived by mail or curbside pickup at local nurseries in a wheelbarrow and boxes so they can be quickly brought indoors at night and returned outside during the day time hours. But yesterday, I gave up and brought everyone inside mid-afternoon when it started to snow. It came down heavily enough that it began to stick to the deck and covered the roof of the fence across the back garden.
The living room is the holding spot for herbs and a few perennials.
The wheelbarrow in the garage has Epimediums, Tricyrtis and Veronicastrums.
The front hall is packed with everything else . . .
including this Rhodie atlanticum that has started to bloom.
Luckily I took advantage of more pleasant weather Saturday afternoon and clipped enough flowers to put together an assortment of vases.
This Tulip and the Muscari grow in full sun in gravelly soil in the traffic island bed in the street. I plant and maintain this little bed which is directly in front of my house.
I have a trio of white pitchers that Ipurchased because I loved their shapes and thought they would be perfect as vases. But photographing them as a group is always difficult, between finding the room to pose all three together and enough light to show their contents in their true colors.
They are filled with Daffodils, Tulip sylvestnis, Epimedium, Fritillaria, Lamium and a Peony.
I opened the window shutters to increase the light!
A pair of Tulip 'Schoonoord' circle Paeonia japonica with Hyacinth 'City of Haarlem' in the rear.
To see what other gardeners have put in a vase today, visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden who hosts this lively and lovely Monday meme.
The temperature on both Saturday and Sunday hit the 70s, making it feel very summery. With nothing on my schedule either day — or any day in the foreseeable future — I spent more time enjoying the garden than working in it. Mark and I sipped tea in the Tea House mid-afternoon and returned to quaff gin and tonics at the cocktail hour. The days were filled with golden sunshine while the garden at the moment is full of every tone of gold.
The Beersheba daffodils have outperformed themselves this year. I love that little spot of yellow on the back of the flowers, a clue to their creamy yellow trumpets. Eventually the entire flower is white.
Fritillaria pallidiflora
Fritillaria thunbergii. This bulb was described as "a good increaser" when I bought five of them in 2015. Today they are large clumps of naturalizing flowers rising in front of Martagon lilies.
I caged them to protect them from the rabbits, not realizing the flower buds had already been bitten off most of the stems. But even a few of these beauties were worth the effort. The interior is the star of these delicate flowers.
Erythronium 'Pagoda'
An unknown Primula kisoana with Symphytum x uplandicum 'Axminster Gold'
Hosta 'Fire Island'
This marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) was so sad looking last spring that I bought another, assuming this one would need replacing. I guess a miracle recovery occurred over the winter.
Peony 'Golden Angel' would never have to flower as its foliage is striking from the minute it emerges. It changes constantly, having gone from red-orange to this blazing coral gold.