My Shade Garden in Late Summer

Last year I visited the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and took note of shade perennials that I was not familiar with.  When I came back to Wellesley, I purchased a few of these, and have been quite happy with them.  They have come into their own this year.  Coupled with a few other plants that I have had for years, I feel that my shade area can compete with other parts of the garden.

I already had liriope, two varieties of astilbe, Euroopean ginger, and hostas.  Hidden among all of these was a stokesia (Stokes' Aster), that I moved today.

I added a Yellow Waxbell Kirengashoma palmata.  This perennial gets to be a good size - mine is about 2 feet by 2 feet.  It has pale yellow-green foliage that is not acid; the flowers are a creamy yellow.  The foliage color and broad leaves, described as "maple-like", creates a nice effect in the border.  It is distinct enough from the surrounding plants that you really notice it - always helpful to "keep the eye moving", my mantra.

I also put in two windflowers (anemone), both of which appeared to have died over the winter.  As soon as it was warm enough in the spring, I bought another one Anemone 'September Charm'.   One of the plants from last year did indeed survive; it is not tall  yet, and not blooming.  Here is a picture of the one that is blooming.

I also bought a second Pink Turtlehead Chelone lyonii 'Hot lips'.  It isn't blooming yet.  The foliage is nice, regardless, and the plant has a good, neat shape.  When it blooms, the flowers are pink.  I will take a picture and post it when it does flower.

My liriope is blooming.  The purple flowers are far from spectacular, although they add interest to the plant.  Liriope is very popular in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC, mostly in foundation plantings.  I would love to move my liriope to my foundation beds, but it is very hard to divide, and even harder to move.  I would like to thin it out, though, perhaps in the Spring.

This post is going up a day late because I lost my phone and internet moments before I was going to publish.  Here are some pictures of the huge truck, and the telephone pole that came crashing down when he snagged the wires across the street.

Who says the suburbs aren't exciting?

I don't think the trucker had a very good night.

The Color Lavender in the Garden

In her magnificent book Colour in Your Garden (William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd., 1985), Penelope Hobhouse explains how color works, especially how colors interact with each other in the garden.  When I first studied this book (I must have read the chapter "The Nature of Colour" ten times before I understood it), the biggest practical takeaway I got was to put paler versions of a light color, such as yellow,  next to deeper versions of a dark color,  such as purple, next to each other.  Never, never, never should you put a deep yellow next to a pale purple.

Of course, I am not always totally logical, and my memory of what I have in specific spots can fade when I am eyeing a plant at the garden center.  Hence, the combination, shown below, of deep yellow black-eyed susan, next to anise hyssop.

This particular photo is off-balance.  However, the yellow flowers on the left will fade, and the sedum autumn joy to the right will bloom an almost burgundy red - creating a pleasing scheme.

Gestalt is important in design.  It is critical to look at the whole of a border, and not condemn based on a limited view.

In this picture, there are three distinct areas of lavender-grey.  The foreground is actually lavender.  The flowers are just starting to show.  When there are more flowers, this block of color will indeed be lavender.  In the middle ground I have Russian sage flopping over a mugo pine.  In the background is the anise  hyssop.  In this view, the interlude provided by the lavender colored plants gives the design balance, movement, and repetition.  It is thus relatively easy for your eye to figure out what is going on in the garden, and to keep your eye moving.

What Was She Thinking?

A part of my border I consider boring, and I have been fiddling with the area a lot this year.  Last summer I made several changes, including moving the medium height alchemilla (Lady's Mantle) to the back of the border because it spreads rapidly and looks awful after it has bloomed.  This year, I moved it back to the middle of the border because a delphinium in front of it survived the winter unexpectedly, grew tall, and bloomed spectacularly for weeks.  I took this success as a message from the gardening gods to move the Lady's Mantle.

I also got rid of an early-blooming, low-growing, spreading, messy-looking plant that may have been a veronica - I honestly am not sure what it is.  I moved three Knautia macedonica 'Thunder and Lightning' from the middle to the middle-front of the border.

You might think that my changes are a failure because the "before" pictures look pretty good.  I think that, given time, the new scheme will work out well.

Doesn't look too bad, but I was not happy.

Looks good - but I cheated with annuals and a good soaking.

Three weeks into the change - two dahlias are thriving, the soil is parched, the annuals aren't too happy, and I think I am going to like this arrangement.

On a different note, I have another picture of a hummingbird - this one is enjoying my Rose of Sharon.  And for those of you who were worried, my husband was able to affix the suction cups to my kitchen window, and the whole family has loved watching hummingbirds take advantage of the feeder.