Friday, August 25, 2017

End of month favorites, there's no hiding from it now...

August really is coming to an end...September 1st is next Friday, then there's Labor Day...and then begins long march into Autumn. (Screech sound effect) WHAT!? No....Summer, it's still summer S.U.M.M.E.R. Do not give in to those evil temptresses trying seduce you with wool sweaters and hot cocoa by the fire. Fight back with your flip flops, open windows and iced beverages...please...I am depending on you!!!

Okay so, what was I saying? Oh yes, last Friday of August, time for a few favorites. My garden is still quite happy, lots of plants looking fabulous, here are just a few...

I potted up my chartreuse strawberry pots with an assortment of Agaves and Sempervivum this year.

This one has the inseparable Agave applanata 'Cream Spike' twins at the top...

With a few random Sempervivum around the base.

Of course the fact one of last year's Portulaca is making a return thrills me. I mean really? These are supposed to be annuals, right?

Moving around to the front of the house the Rhamnus frangula (Fine Line Buckthorn) at the corner just keeps getting better.

It's so easy to overlook, after all it's just a vertical green shape, but those leaves and that bark...

It's a good one.

This surprised me! I thought the Caesalpinia gilliesii was a gonner.

I didn't dig out the roots, just cut it back to the ground. Now look, it's fighting for space with a Tetrapanax shoot.

The NOID Stapelia was blooming for August's Bloomday, but it's not stopping there. No less than three blooms are fixing to open, two of them on a big piece of the plant that broke off last fall.

Glad to know it's forgiven me for that accident.

Oh Lupinus albifrons, you know I love you!

So much so I asked Gerhard to send a couple of replacements (for the ones I lost last winter), when he visited Annie's Annuals. Sadly only one of them made it, but it's looking good!

Passiflora lutea, climbing up the Trachycarpus fortunei trunk like that's what it was made to do.

Yes, that's what I planted it to do. Of course a few flowers would be nice. But I'm trying not to complain.

Like the Caesalpinia gilliesii, I thought the Sophora prostrata 'Little Baby' were also goners after the ugly winter. But, all three now have lots of those cute little leaves on their divaricated stems. Yay!

Okay, only one more. I picked up this Erica arborea var. alpina for $3 at the UW Arboretum back in 2015.

Look at it now! It's grown a lot. I think I need another one. Wait no, there's no doubt, I need another one, or two...

And that's a wrap on my random favorites for the month of August. What's looking great in your garden???
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There's one other bit of business to tend to, who's the winner of the year's subscription to Garden Design Magazine?.....Well the random number generator selected #5, and that's Cicely! Congrats to you and I'll be in touch to get your mailing address. Thanks to everyone who entered the give-away.


Weather Diary, Aug 24: Hi 75, Low 63/ Precip 0

All material © 2009-2017 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

21 comments:

  1. Your collection of Agaves is stunning and they look splendid in a strawberry pot! what a wonderful idea!

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    1. Thanks! And that's just the tip of the iceberg as far as the collection....

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  2. I agree 100% with your assessment of the end of summer. I'm just not ready. It's not that I don't love fall, it's just the impending doom of what comes next and lasts so long here in Minnesota. I still have lots of color in my gardens too. We've had cooler temps and good amounts of rain, and the flowers are loving it.

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    1. Exactly, if autumn was followed directly by spring I would feel differently.

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  3. Lovely, one and all! Your post is yet another reminder that my garden "needs" a Caesalpinia. Coincidentally, I featured a succulent planted in a strawberry pot in my own favorites post this month. Your Lupinus albifrons has me thinking I should try it again, although my track record with lupines isn't great - some have been consumed by tent caterpillars and I just discovered that another silvery beauty, L. sericatus, seems to have been swamped by a rampant Barberia obtusa.

    Here's my favorites post: https://krispgarden.blogspot.com/2017/08/late-summer-favorites.html

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    1. And you can even have the more exotic (to me) orange blooming Caesalpinia can't you? Try the Lupine!!!

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  4. That's a lot of favorites and all of them looking good. What is the plant on the right in the gray pot in the very first photo?

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    1. Bocconia frutescens, aka Tree Poppy. Not hardy here, thus life in a container for it.

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  5. Hooray for more summer! A note from Debby Downer - So sad at Fred Meyer today when the only plants in the garden center were chrysanthemums, asters, and a couple kinds of ornamental grass. Halloween and Thanksgiving decor was already on the shelves. Your garden is still looking very perky and youthful. Mine has taken on a bit of a middle-aged sag in some areas.

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    1. Ya, I saw those stupid ceramic pumpkin faces and chrysanthemums at the door to my FM and knew better than to go anywhere near the nursery dept...

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  6. That bark.....that bark...must have. Yes, it's still summer, people. As much as we love autumn I'll take summer any day. Remember last January? Enough said.

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    1. Seriously Tamara, that Rhamnus is such a great plant!

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  7. That Rhamnus is quite the underdog. Such gorgeous bark! And yes, you need more Erica arborea var. alpina! I love 'Estrella Gold' so much I have 8 of them! My two older plants really grew well this year. The ones I planted this spring barely grew, but hopefully they're developing nice root systems to explode next year.

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    1. Well 8 on all your land ALMOST equates to one here. I'll think about it...

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    2. You might be right about that. I actually put a favorites post together for this month, even if it is a little late. http://practicalplantgeek.blogspot.com/2017/08/end-of-august-favorites.html

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  8. We can often have summery weather well into October. I'll hope for that for you, if you will grant us a tapering off of the extreme heat. Is it a deal?

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    1. The forecast does not look to be tapering one darn bit...

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  9. I'm screeching right along with you about the slow slide towards fall. I demand a longer summer!
    Love the strawberry pots and the gorgeous silver agaves next to your front door...delicious!

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  10. I had to bring home one of those Buckthorns. Not sure where to put it yet.

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    1. I'm sure you'll find a place, it's so good!

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