What's Still Flowering Well?

Even though we're in mid-September, there's still lots of color to come along (aside from the changing fall colors we see with our trees). The shot to the left was taken today in our prairie with a nice combination of asters, Eupatorium and goldenrod. Our annual beds are looking a bit tired after some nights in the 40s. We're starting to remove any seasonals that aren't looking well in anticipation of total removal after the first frost. We'll need to clear space for our bulb planting in the coming weeks and will have some donations from our plant sale that we can utilize throughout the gardens. With warm soil temperatures, September and early October are still great times to plant.

Janice worked with Heidi and Barb and did a significant amount of clearing throughout our annual beds near the main parking lot. She's also coordinating the picking of hot peppers from our extensive collection. We don't want anything to go to waste and Janice has done a nice job maximizing the organization, maintenance and utilization of this specialty collection. Marianne was off today but came in to count plant sale money. She deserves some time off for sure. Jerry and Larry were involved with many tasks today and helped keep the flood guys moving along smoothly from project to project. I'm catching up with labels including those for the hostas we dug up yesterday. The seven-sons-flower (Heptacodium miconioides) is in bloom below with the late season monarchs getting some nectar. This is actually a large shrub / small tree that will get over 15' tall in time. Vase-shaped with ornamental bark, seven-sons flower blooms in mid-Sept. in to October where the blooms then convert to colorful, light red berries (drupes). This is a great plant and is also extremely insect and disease resistant.

I love the shrub below. This is called bushclover (Lespedeza thunbergii 'Gibraltar') and dies back to the ground every year. In the course of the growing season, it will get 5-8' tall with bluish-green leaves followed by the flowers you see below from right now, well in to October. The shrub arches over and needs some space but it is one of my favorite late blooming shrubs.