August Bloom Day

It's high summer here, and in the Chicago area we've been getting some welcome, and much needed relief from this year's record heat and drought.  The garden is grateful, and so am I.  

Salvia x sylvestris 'Blue Hill' has been oblivious to the weather, maintained its clean foliage as usual, and as long as it's deadheaded regularly, it keeps blooming all season.

Here in a small corner in front where lava rock has been pushed away and the ongoing battle with a neighbor's ivy is waged, an unnamed phlox, Sedum 'Matrona' , a seedling baptisia, and young native grasses grown with seeds from Monica this spring have done well with little rain.  

These are the delicate seedheads of petite purple love grass.

 Here's the whole little plant, along with a couple of flopping phlox stems. This, along with four other kinds of grasses, are my first forays into native grasses.  They were  all easy to start from seeds, and didn't need much coddling in spite of the hot, dry weather.  I kept them in gallon pots until mid-July.  Now in the garden, they're all growing and thriving.  I'm loving this little native grass and hoping the other larger grasses will bloom this year too.

Thank you for the seeds, Monica!

'Happy Returns' daylilies were sheared to the ground about a month ago to clean up the yellow and brown foliage.  Within a week they were back up, and blooming again a few days later.  Still blooming now, they're looking a lot better with clean foliage.

 I wait for angel's trumpet blooms all summer.  They're exquisitely fragrant,

 and beautiful too, don't you think?

Combined with the fragrance from Hosta plantaginea, 

Hosta plantaginea 'Aphrodite' (fully-open bloom further down, below,) and Sambac jasmine (not pictured,) the evening through early morning scents on our patio and floating on light breezes through open windows are simply divine.

Double impatiens are staples in a couple of hanging baskets almost every year here.  I like them with the airy blooms of Diamond Frost euphorbia.  Is there anything Diamond Frost doesn't go well with?

 We like impatiens in multiple colors.

Purple coneflowers are still looking fresh.  So far this season, the goldfinches haven't pulled off all the petals.

Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' is about a foot shorter, with fewer blooms than usual.  Pollinators ignore these cultivars.  I'm thinking we need the natives.  Starting native plants from seed takes patience, but it's rewarding, cheap thrills. 

Here's Hosta plantaginea 'Aphrodite,' the morning after the first-ever bloom opened.  They open at night.  They're notoriously slow to bloom after planting.  It took seven years for this one. Unlike most other hostas, The scapes barely rise above the foliage. The foliage is solid, deep green. I love the texture, elegance, substance, shade, and shape of it.  The flowers make lovely icing.

Hibiscus 'Midnight Marvel' is a new introduction this year.  All of us who attended Walters Gardens' Media Day last week got to bring one home.  How thoughtful it was to obligingly open its first bloom just in time for Bloom Day.  

I've made peace with Agastache 'Blue Fortune's' grey-blue foliage.  It performs well in our garden, returns faithfully each year, and while it's not as full as usual, it's tolerated the heat and drought here well.  Although they're cultivars, pollinators are all over them.

Rudbeckia 'Herbstsonne' is a cross between two native rudbeckias.  Pollinators love them in our garden, but they haven't performed nearly as well as they usually do in more normal summer weather.  The plants are severely stunted and not blooming as much as usual.  The two smallest plants have powdery mildew.

Hummingbirds visit this fuchsia multiple times every day.

Cardinal flowers are another hummingbird favorite here.  They look better most years.  I'm glad they survived the hottest summer here on record.

Here's 'Midnight Marvel' fully open a few hours later.

Late summer is one of my favorite times in our garden.  This month, with it's milder temperatures and good rains so far, has been beautiful here.  I hope you're enjoying beautiful weather, enough rain, and lots of blooms in your garden this month.

Happy Bloom Day, and to see what's blooming in gardens everywhere today, please visit our host, Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Blue(?) Bottlebrush Blooms

Monica of Garden Faerie's Musings visited the Lurie Garden in downtown's Millennium Park on Sunday during her visit to Chicago a couple of weekends ago. She wrote about her visit on her MLive blog, Full Bloom. I haven't been to the Lurie Garden yet, or Millennium Park for that matter. Quite the homebody, I don't get out much! When I'm not working I spend as much time at home as possible, especially in my own garden.

Anyway, Monica posted some lovely photos from her visit to Lurie Garden. The first shot in the post is of Agastache 'Blue Fortune.' Check it out, then compare the bloom color to the same plant in my garden. I wanted that blue, but this is what I got instead:

Well, this is sort of what I got. I didn't enhance this photo at all, yet the blue in the photo doesn't accurately depict the color of these blooms. They're really more the color of dirty dishwater.

They don't look like this either. I took the first shot in the early morning, and this one later in the day, right after sunset. I've tried at several different times of day, and can't capture the dull color of these blooms on camera.
Agastache 'Blue Fortune' is also know as Anise Hyssop. The foliage is very fragrant, and when crushed smells distinctly of anise. It's described on the tags that came with my three plants as follows: "Beautiful spikes of flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden. Add the aromatic foliage to teas, salads, and drinks for a sweetly spicy flavor. Prized for is neat habit, long bloom season, and heat and drought tolerance." It's estimated height is 24-36", and recommended exposure is full sun.

The anise hyssop here is planted in the shade. In it's second summer in our garden, it's over three feet tall and blooming profusely in spite of its less-than ideal light conditions. It's just the color of these flowers that bugs me. They're dull. Dull, dull, dull. Oh, and did I mention they're dull?

There are a number of plants recommended for sun that bloom admirably in part sun, and occasionally, even in full shade. Other examples include some daylilies, phlox, and coneflowers. For example, here's 'Ruby Giant' in the shade with about an hour of dappled afternoon sun in our garden:
There's nothing ruby, or giant, or purple about this coneflower. In this case, I enjoy this demure, pretty, pale pink flower, and I don't think the finches will care what color it was when they're enjoying it's delectable seeds.

I'm thinking about moving the hyssop in the fall to a spot where there's a little more sun - in front of the 'Herbstsonne' Rudbeckia,and behind the 'Goldsturm.'The rudbeckias are planted in the sunniest part of the garden, (still at best part sun.) I wonder if moving the hyssop would perk up the color of the blooms. This fall I hope to move lots of things around in our garden. It's been more of a nursery than a garden as I've been collecting plants and experimenting with what and where to grow stuff in this dry, shady garden these first years I've lived here. I'm very pleased with how well the hyssop is growing and blooming, even in the shade. I love the scent of the foliage, the large size of the plants, and how well they tolerate the challenging conditions of growing in the shallow roots of our large maples. I like the long bloom time. It's just that dull bloom color that bugs me.

Oddly enough, the coneflowers planted in almost full shade are blooming before the ones in part sun. I'm curious to see the buds on the sunnier coneflowers as they open, probably starting in the next few days. I wonder if they'll be brighter in color. I suspect they will. If so that will be even more motivation to move the hyssop and the 'Goldstrum' Rudbeckias.

Do you grow Agastache 'Blue Fortune' in your garden? I'd love to know your opinion of this plant. I'm curious about the color of your blooms, and how that might correlate with how much sun they receive.