Front Border in High Summer

This is a scene from my front border after the eremurus, poppies and alliums have gone by

     One of the big problems with a garden is how to sustain interest year round.  As I have explained before, my front border reaches its peak in June, and so the problem becomes, how to keep it looking good the rest of the summer?  This is particularly a problem in a no water border like this, because typically plants deal with lack of water by going dormant.  So the plants in the picture are ones that I have found are good to provide interest later in the summer.
     One of the chief among this group is this late blooming kniphofia.  This is a very large plant I got from Plant Delights many years ago.  If I remember correctly, it was billed as coming originally from Beth Chatto and was considered to be one of the largest kniphofias around.  Unfortunately, I don't remember its name.  I used to grow a lot of kniphofias, but currently this is the only one I have.  I have made a note to myself, however to add more of them for the purpose of providing this kind of late season color.  When planting kniphofias it is important to pay attention to bloom time because their bloom time can vary widely, depending on which one you plant.
     One reason I do not have that many kniphofias any more is that they have rather sloppy foliage.  In the situation pictured above, however, that does not matter so much because the plant is in the middle of a large bed, surrounded by other foliage, so you do not notice its foliage.
     Other plants that are good in a late summer drought tolerant bed like this are Lobelia tupa and various thistle like plants, such as the scotch thistle in the picture (which I am almost afraid to mention for fear the invasive plant mafia will get after me),  cardoons, and globe thistles (the blue globes in the photo are Echinops ritro ssp. ruthenicus). Some of the eryngiums are still going on now, too, although Eryngium alpinum is done blooming.  I have noticed that Eryngium 'Big Blue' has a very long bloom time, and for a border is actually better than Eryngium alpinum,  although its individual flowers are not as good.  It just has such a long bloom time and such a multitude of electric blue flowers on a good looking plant that you can't beat it. If you look closely you can see some of it in the lower left hand quadrant of the picture.
     Another essential plant for late summer interest is Melianthus major which you can see mounded up behind the Kniphofia.  This plant will keep going strongly well into winter in our climate.  It is the foliage which is the thing with it, and it is glorious at this time of the year.

Beetle on Cactus

This beetle was sitting on one of my cactus plants the other day

     I thought I would show you a picture of this cool beetle that was sitting on one of my cactus plants the other day.  After googling images of beetles found in the Pacific Northwest, I have tentatively concluded that this is a ten lined June beetle.  According to a Washington State website, this beetle is commonly found in sandy soils west of the Rockies. Adults feed on the leaves of broadleaf trees and some conifers.  The adult can be between 3/4 to 1 and 1/2 inches long.  This particular one was about an inch long.  For those who might want to know, this beetle did not do any damage to the cactus, and it moved on within the day.  This is a good picture to view large if you are not creeped out by insects.

A Way To Avoid Staking Delphiniums

Delphinium 'Blue Lace' still upright and unstaked amid Orienpet lilies

Close up of 'Blue Lace'

     I grow a lot of delphiniums in my garden, and I have posted about them previously here and here.  This year I neglected to stake them, and they were all right until we had some rainy and windy weather and then they all splayed every which way onto the ground.  Once they have done that there is nothing you can do but cut them.  There was one bright spot in all this disaster, however.  I have three plants of 'Blue Lace', one of the Dowdeswell delphiniums, planted in a bed surrounded by a number of the well established Orienpet lily 'Satisfaction'.  I wrote about that lily here.  These orienpet lilies, once they are mature, make very thick, sturdy, upright stems.  They are so sturdy, in fact, that if you plant them around a clump of delphiniums they will support them!  How exciting is that?
     I have grown several other orienpets and they all have such sturdy stems that they would serve as delphinium supports equally well.  Other types of lilies that I have grown would not be such good supports.  To adequately support one clump of delphiniums I would estimate that you would need at least 6 lilies to provide adequate support.  That should be no problem as these orienpets can be had relatively inexpensively.  For example, see Brent and Becky's Bulbs where you can get 25 of these for a little over 60 dollars.

Tetrapanax Eye Candy

Underside of Tetrapanax 'Steroidal Giant' leaves

     Although I have previously written about tetrapanax here, I wanted you to get your tetrapanax fix with this HDR image I made of the underside of some tetrapanax leaves growing in my garden.  Because of our mild winter, the tetrapanaxes are very large and impressive this year.  This is a combination of three exposures, necessitated because I was shooting into the sun, making the sky blown out while the underside of the leaves was too dark.  For those who don't know photography jargon, if the sky is blown out that means important details are lost.  In Photoshop, as long as neither the darks or the lights are blown you can recover all detail even though the photograph may not look like much straight out of the camera. I would recommend that you click on the image to view it full screen.  If you do, you may see a little spider on the tetrapanax leaf.

Agastache 'Rasberry Summer'

Agastache 'Raspberry Summer' in my front border with Eremurus 'Lemon Chiffon' behind

     I have grown many agastaches over the years, none of which have been very long lived plants in my garden, but I have always thought I should try more of them because they are drought tolerant, deer resistant, and attractive to hummingbirds and bees.  So last year when I was browsing in one of our local nurseries I saw this relatively new Terra Nova introduction called 'Raspberry Summer' and the color of the flowers said to me "Buy me, buy me" and so I did.  As it turns out, that was a great decision! 
     I planted three of these in my front border and then just basically abandoned them for the rest of the summer.  Two of them made it through the winter and they are now showing their true worth.  I love this color of flower, and if the Terra Nova blurb that accompanied them is to be believed, they will bloom all summer and into the fall. According to that blurb, the foliage is an attractive bright green and aromatic.  The plant is supposed to be easy to grow given full sun and well drained soil.
     This agastache, which I love, by the way, is a product of Terra Nova's breeding program for agastaches.  As indicated in Terra Nova's website, the goals of that breeding are to produce plants that, among other things, have longer lasting flowers, better habit, and better color palette.  This plant certainly succeeds on the color palette criterion.  Hopefully it will also succeed on the others as well.  I haven't grown it long enough to know.
     For those who don't know, Terra Nova is a large wholesale nursery in Canby, Oregon, which specializes in tissue culturing and breeding new cultivars of various plants.  Some of their specialties have been heucheras, pulmonarias, and echinaceas. They are also the nursery which has been producing mass quantities of the 'Winter Jewel' hellebores from the O'Byrnes in Eugene, Oregon.  As I have mentioned before, I think these hellebores are the best on the market.
     A few years ago Will Giles of the Exotic Garden fame from the UK was visiting, and I chauffeured him on a trip to various Oregon nurseries.  He particularly wanted to see Terra Nova, so we got a guided tour of the nursery by Dan Heims.  I must say, the scope of it was quite impressive, and it was interesting to see the tissue culture operation.  You can see pictures of this, as well as an explanation, on the Terra Nova website here.
     The eremurus in the background of the photo above is 'Lemon Chiffon', one that I got from McClure and Zimmerman a few years ago (if I remember correctly).

Salvia Argentea

Salvia argentea foliage last summer

Salvia argentea in bloom now with Salvia sclarea 'Piemont' in front and Papaver 'Lauren's Grape'

     While I am on the subject of the new plantings in the bed by my front door, I want to show you Salvia argentea.  Although I have tried to grow this plant in the past, I never had much luck with it.  This time, however, I was successful.  This salvia is a biennial, like Salvia sclarea 'Piemont' which I described a few days ago.  The problem I have had with it is that it is liable to rot over the winter time in our rainy cold winters.  So this time I planted it on the sloping side of this new bed.  As I mentioned previously,  I added 10 yards of sandy loam to the bed which raised it somewhat and created the slope that I planted the salvias on.  Also, the fact that the loam was sandy increased the drainage capabilities of the bed.
      I planted three of these salvias, which I got from Bainbridge Gardens, one of our local retail nurseries.  I have noticed Salvia argentea is widely available this year in local nurseries. Two of the three plants were on the most sloping part of the bed, while the third was on a less sloped area.  Interestingly, the plants on the greatest slope did the best over the winter, even though all of them survived.  The moral of this story is that if you want these plants to live over the winter in this climate, remember drainage, drainage, drainage!
     I have read that many people grow these plants as annuals because the foliage is so great that it doesn't matter if they ever bloom.  Indeed, I have seen it recommended that you cut off the flower spikes as they come up to maintain the foliage and to prevent them from blooming.   This, it is said, will keep them living longer.  I have never tried this so don't know if it works.
     Of all the furry grey leaved plants I have grown over the years, I must say that Salvia argentea has the most furry tactile leaves of all.  Just remember, if you want to grow it, give it good drainage, full sun, and do not let it get overshadowed by other plants.

More Eryngium Eye Candy

Eryngium alpinum with Salvia nemerosa

     For my last two posts I have been talking about the newly planted bed by my front door.  I say newly planted because all the plants there now were put in last summer.  Anyway, in addition to the Echium wildpretii shown in my last post, and the Salvia sclarea 'Piemont' in the one before that, I also planted some Eryngium alpinums I got from Dancing Oaks Nursery.  These were very good looking well grown plants, and the picture you see above is one of them blooming now.  These flowers look very much the same as the flowers of Eryngium 'Blue Jackpot' which I wrote about here and here.  They look slightly different from my oldest Eryngium alpinum which I got from Heronswood many years ago.  That plant is pictured here.  I have read that there is some variation in Eryngium alpinum flowers grown from seed, and indeed, there are several strains of Eryngium alpinum on the market.  The bottom line, though, is that these plants from Dancing Oaks are great and I would highly recommend them.