enjoyable for August

Bringing home plants in luggage!! Can totally relate, Charlie! I've tucked many seeds in pockets over the years... from beach weddings to random wanderings....

Your gardens look smashing!!

Agree, Lucy.

Still, I need to start paying more attention to the average and range of bloom times of individual garden phlox cultivars.
The weather so far this summer has been good for blooming phlox, though we have had to do some watering.

Great thing about this trip and plants, Janice, was being able to bring plants back (i.e. was travelling just within this country).
It's ironic that we can bring things like booze back from other countries, but not seemingly harmless things like plants (at least with any soil on the roots).
But I do admit that there's more to it than that.
Think the big agricultural focus here has been keeping out several potato pathogens.

Today:

Oh, Charlie, how lush!!!

Makes you want to just stroll by and admire all your wonderful combinations .

The Phlox and Globe Thistle......

Thanks, Janice.

Just noted somebody saying that they deadhead the globe thistle to prevent seeding.
I do deadhead perennials for that and other reasons, but I've never noted globe thistle seeding
and that includes the species (as in picture above).

Maybe different growing conditions (or I'm consistently too quick with the clippers!).

Today:

Oh, boy, Charlie, your beds are just bursting with special plants!

Helenium is a favorite. What variety is that last pic?

Lovely Asters.................. and is that Phlox Nora Leighs' gorgeous foliage I see?

Is the yellow daisy formed flower in photo #2 another form of redbeckia? If so do you find that it returns every year?

Yes Janice, Picture 2, 'Nora Leigh', a fabulous garden phlox.

That helenium is a bit of a mystery.
I keep pretty meticulous records on what i plant, especially in our own garden.

I planted Helenium 'Feuersiegel' on that spot in 2007, but never noticed any trace of it in the years after that.
Most of the perennials I subsequently planted around that spot are long dead.

That helenium looks very similar to some on-line pictures of 'Feuersiegel'.

Lucy, it's a helenium.
I'm pretty sure, for several reasons, that it's 'Sonnenwunder'.

Of the Rudbeckias, I tend to rely on 'Goldsturm' and now also 'Little Goldstar', both very hardy perennials here.

I love the color combo with the rose pink daylily, the bright pink phlox peeking out and the helenium setting it all off. Beautiful!!

Thanks, Suzie.

One of those fortuitous combinations you get in mixed perennial gardening as some plants finish blooming while other plants come into bloom.

Today.

The phlox are largely over and there's more evidence of powdery mildew than most years.
Need to cut more phlox back (flowering or not) to limit the fungal inoculum entering the soil.

The one exception to the end of the phlox (for this year) is 'Nora Leigh'.



Helenium/sneezeweed is currently the work-horse of the garden.

The things you can grow up there! I've really enjoyed looking at your beautiful gardens and pictures.

Thanks, David.

Think an advantage is strong seasonality.

We know St Pete Beach, Fl, very well.
Love the place.
Of course, that's during the one season when are garden is covered with snow!

My favourite plant down your way is the Bougainvillea.
The typical colour range reminds me of that of our garden phlox,
but the broad sweeps of Bougainvillea are that much more impressive.

The Bougainvilleas of California are mindboggling! The ones right at the coastal areas fare well in Winter freezes here like around Port Orange or Daytona for instance, ( I think its the saltier air) Yet we Central Floridians know that if a good long freeze happens, we have lots of thorny refuse to deal with in Spring before the new growth comes back from below!

Yet they grow back fresh, new and beautiful. That is something I believe Canadians would be happy for. All zones have their ups and downs before they're up again I suppose...

Love your gardens!

David

Things thinning out, but below (Sept 16, 2013) is not that different from the fifth picture of September 2 above.



Our own asters are just coming into bloom (Sep 19, 2013).



Below includes the end of the helenium and the beginning of the New England asters at a perennial garden (Mrs. L's) which I installed and have maintain for over ten years (Sept 20,2013).
Hardscaping (recent addition) not my work!

New England asters are here, but I have to walk out behind the barn to see them.

Great borders Charlie.Love the composition of colors.I am a "garden stuffer"too.

100%!