14 Straight Days of Sunshine

The weather has been absolutely glorious. This weekend I spent more time on the computer than I did in my garden adding memory and cleaning up an overburdened C drive for my husband. Many thanks to my wonderful nephew Andrew who gave up part of his Sunday to put things right. Aim to remedy my lack of solar units today and make time to fiddle about in the back garden. The back garden is heavy on leaves rather than blossoms and can certainly handle more neglect than the front - but the time has come for some remedial action.

The light is so forgiving - even those less than adorable plants seem to have their photographic moment. Each day, around 3:30 I've been scooting around the garden to see who's ready for their close-up.

There are 4 or 5 blossoms on this Hibiscus today - will see what I can do with the camera later on - here it was on Saturday as the sun made its way through the leaves of the Beech tree at the front of the pathway.

As stunning as so many of the fall bloomers are, and as nice as it is to show them to you, I'm going to be honest and show you a less-than magical-spot in my fall garden. This Dicentra 'Gold Heart' has been a beautiful gold colour right through August - a 2 month improvement on the species that goes dormant in early July. I had grown this in a pot with a collection of perennials and it bloomed all season - very weird for Dicentra spectabilis. In the ground it does bloom longer than the species - but only by a few weeks. The leaves keep their nice golden colour until the end of August. I'd say it's pretty well done for the year, wouldn't you?

The Heptacodium has grown well above the roof. Newish to the trade and North America, who knows how big it will grow? The scent of the blossoms is a lovely soft jasmine/rose cross. The bees go completely mad while it's in bloom - crawling all over it all day and well into the early evening.

Lots of little pollinators at work - here on the old original-to-the-property (50+ years old) phlox.

And on the Solidago which in early spring looks so much like phlox, I seem to have missed pulling it out.

And on a late blooming Heuchera villosa - even the flowers are furry.

If I had more sunlight in my garden, I'd definitely grow more grasses - this is a Calamagrostis - a variegated one that grows about a third less tall than Karl Foerster - although not as short as I wanted it to be as it's poking out the eyeballs of a nearby PeeGee.

Where would I be without my blackvelvet portraits? Here's a lovely new-to-me Nicotania mutabilis from Select Seed. Will find and post photo later so you can see all the different colours of pink the blossoms are. They start very pale and then change to a good clear pink. It grows to about 1.75 Meters (5-6 feet) and sends up several nice tall stocks. I planted mine close to the edge of the garden, which works well for me as it has an open habit and I delight in being able to to examine the changing blossoms.

The self-seeded Perilla is doing very well this year. Like the insects in my garden, I find the taste of this herb Shiso appalling - too bad for me, because it grows beautifully in my garden.

It really is a terrific filler - the grand orangey coloured short lived expensive Echinacea looked fab with it last year - alas, it is just a memory. The only recommendation I'd make if you're going to grow Perilla is to deadhead it as it is a professional self seeder. And like all self seeders, it grows well everywhere - in pots, in the garden, the grass, the pea gravel, and cracks in the pavement. Fortunately its good purple colour gives it away, so it's an easy target.