Abutilon

It's nice to see some things in the garden that still look good. Here is one of four abutilon I have in pots. They are commonly called flowering maple, because the leaves are shaped like maple leaves. They are zone 8 and borderline here, so I think I will put two different colors ones in the storage room next month and leave two outside under cover to see how they do.

Pomegranite

My dwarf pomegranite is finally blooming. Too late for the flowers to turn to pomegranites, but maybe I'll take inside next month and put by a south window to see if anything develops!

Tigridia

Photo of a tigridia flower. This is a bulb that is easily available but doesn't seem to be commonly planted. The flowers are beautiful and each lasts one day. It is a treat to come upon them as you walk around the yard.

Garden photos from upper deck

I just took some pictures of the garden from the top deck. The garden looks pretty good for late September.

This is driveway, showing some of the geraniums on the left and the creek bank on the right.

 This is the back of the pool, showing the "coral bed" to the left and the shade garden to the right.

 This is the rose garden on the left and the pastel/English garden in the middle. John mowed and edged the lawn yesterday. I do love an edged lawn!

 The spa garden in on the bottom, and the hot/tropical garden is on top.

Moving plants and spreading compost

I did a lot of rearranging of plants in the front garden beds. I had orange/yellow cannas in the spa bed, but this bed has plants with mostly red flowers. So I moved several orange cannas to the "hot/tropical" bed. To make room, I moved three gauras and another pink perennial to the pastel bed, and I moved yellow cannas to the spa bed. And then I did little more plant shifting.

I also dug up a huge fuchsia that was starting to crowd out a nice small Japanese maple and the blueberry bushes. Then I separated a daylily to fill in. Finally, I did more clean-up: trimming spend perennials and weeding. Then I spread compost in the areas where I'd been moving plants, with a little extra around these plants, especially those that are a bit tender.

Adding late summer color to section above the upper driveway

I dug out several hosta that were getting too much sun. In their place I planted several hardy fuchsias that were getting too big for their previous spots in the beds near the front door and in containers. I also moved a gaura from a pot to this bed. These will provide some summer color to this bed that previously just had color in the spring from iris, columbine, creeping phlox, and candytuft.

I also planted some yellow tulips in the bed for extra spring color.

I pulled a large fuchsia from this bed. I rearranged some of the remaining plants, so it looks better. On a sunny day like today, everything looks good!

Rearranging the garden

It's a great time to move plants. The soil is warm and will help the roots recover and grow. And we will have plenty of rainfall to water the plants.

I've dug up and divided several plants for my sons' new houses. I've also removed some hosta plants that are not happy in my sunny yard and will prefer the shade in Steve's yard.

The work ahead of me is to rearrange a number of plants in my front yard. I've got orange canna lily flowers in the spa bed with a lot of Santa Claus fuchsia. And I've got pink gauras in the tropical bed. So I'm going to be switching plants to get the oranges together. I've always found orange a difficult color to blend in the garden. So I will try to contain it in the tropical bed. There the orange cannas can mix with yellow cannas and callas, purple liatris and cannas, orange and yellow alstroemeria, white coneflowers, and other plants with hot colors and bold foliage.

I will move the pink gauras to other beds. They will fill in empty spots nicely. Lots of digging ahead!

Grooming

Recent weeks have entailed lots of trimming and weeding. I've used my favorite tool, the action hoe, a lot to keep after weeds while tiny. I walk around the yard and hoe away!

The late summer garden demands a lot of deadheading and trimming. Some of the perennials are finished and drying up and can be cut almost to the ground. Other plants have the spent flowers and dried parts cut off. I cut off many of the spent annuals at ground level, leaving the roots to enrich the soil over the winter. However, I pulled out and cleaned up the beds of diseased plants. My snapdragons got a fungus disease Botrytis blight (gray mold). Normally they would continue blooming until November, but we had too much cool damp weather.


I removed many of the stakes (English Y stakes). I used a few on other late summer plants, such as dahlia.