Late Summer favorites

Favorite plants I planted this past year that look so beautiful in late summer:

Verbena Bonariensis--so pretty and airy!  Right on the edge of our zone but will likely self seed if it doesn't come back!  I'm going to need a little hedge of these when I put my big garden in.  I love how the path creates a focal point.  

Rozanne Geranium/Hardy Cranesbill--RHS plant of the centenary!  Super pretty trailing foliage.  Blooms like an annual!  June-November (it's still going!).  No deadheading,  which is a huge win for me.  Not invasive or self seeding.

Tall Garden Phlox--I'm loving my white phlox!  I've had more questions about the tall phlox than anything else.  My pallette is white, silver, purple, wine, pale pink, a hint of yellow.  This has been such a pretty long lasting bloom and just gets bigger each year.

Dark Shadows Echinacea--The deep wine color is a favorite.  It is so much better looking after a year in the ground!  

Millenium Allium-- The spikey foliage and clean mound is perfect, even when the blooms fade, it looks great.  I love the round shape of the flower.

Coral Bells/Heuchera--I love the variegated foliage of this variety.  Super versatile plant that tolerates sun or shade and I love the deep wine colored veins.

Japanese Anenome --Honorine Jobert such a cute flower!  The plant will get big (4' tall and 2.5' wide) and I'm so here for it! It loves shade and is exactly what I wanted in my front.   I think I'll add another layer of these in the back of my front walk garden. Fresh cold tolerant blooms.

Japanese Anenome Harlequin Pastel--Smaller 12"x10" size looks so cute in my late summer, fall garden

Mexican Feather Grass--I love grasses and texture.  This one is more blonde and wispy.   You can actually comb through with a real comb if it gets unsightly.  

Astrantia--I tried this on my shady north fence.  So far it's still so small.  Fingers crossed for next year!  The saying for perennials, is first year they "sleep" and I'm hoping that is the case here.  They need moist soil.  Mine might be a little too dry.

Jack Frost Brunnera--This one is great for the north exposure areas that are mostly shade.  It has the cutest blue forget-me-not like flowers in spring.  The variegated heart shaped leaf is really beautiful the rest of the year.  It gets bigger each year--so excited about this.

Cats Pajamas nepeta--Nice short, bloom covers the whole stem.  Perfect for the front of a border.  Blooms bright purple in spring and then continues more muted til fall.  I love how it looks so brilliant with all the bright spring color, but is more of a lavender like color in fall.  Blooming still in November!  Likes being cut back.  Blooms in areas where lavender doesn't thrive.

Burgundy Bunny Grass pennisetum

Whirling butterflies gaura

Limelight hydrangea

Pink Agastache

This one is a bee magnet!  I love it in front of my hydrangeas cause they look so pretty together as the hydrangeas pink up in colder nights of fall.

Pansies! I loved adding this combo of pansies this fall and think they really pulled in all the colors and provided some fall blooms at the front of the border.  I really love the pansies and they last through the winter.  Sadly the deer have been pulling them up.  Hopefully I can revive them!

Progress Pics

 Of my yard.  Haha. 

We had a wedding here in September!  For the NICEST couple.  It was fun.  It was also stressful when we fertilized our lawn and my husband burned the lawn right before the wedding.  So we did our best to water  it out and sow some new lawn seed.  Talk about stress though!  I wanted it to look great and the lawn was patchy.  Anyway, it was okay and with the tables and things it wasn't so obvious.  All the beautiful details made sure no one was really paying attention to the lawn.  At least I hope.

A nursery load I loved!

Lifesavers.  The Sluggo Plus is for the earwigs that decimate my seedlings.  Such a miracle worker.

There were MANY loads like this.  But less than last year!  I'll take it.

                                          

Just a sampling of the hundreds of plants we installed. They are still tiny!  We are hopeful next year they will be much bigger.

My aspens got iron chlorosis and sadly have been dying recently.  They are a short lived tree down in the valleys.  But they screen my utility pole.  So I want to keep them!  We gave them some Dr. Iron and they definitely looked more green!  We also uncovered the root system more as we had mulched a lot a couple years ago and were worried that was also part of the problem.

Long stretch of nothing along my south fence turned into more flower area.  I may just do more fruit trees here though.  Or another berry patch.  Or a greenhouse.  We will see!

Finally the harvest

The goats hopped the fence to my cutting garden and ate everything except for a few plants.  Dahlias from tubers are resistant.  But cuttings are more tender.  I bought some dahlia cuttings on really hard to find varieties.  These were $30 each for just a tiny rooted cutting.  Crazy.  About half survived!  All were quite stunted.  Oh well!  Next year!

I also got hit with powdery mildew early.  Sad for my plants!  Definitely lots of work and I had fewer blooms that were smaller.  It's okay though.  I'm going to do a bigger garden next year in a sunnier location and I think that will help a lot.

Gardening is the ultimate delayed gratification.  Sometimes the progress takes years to really appreciate!  I'm sure that's the case here.  As many first year plants are just out there surviving.  Excited for the growth that happens over the years.