This is the time of year when, as they say, ‘Summer is winding down’. The days are already shortening enough to notice. And in our bed and breakfast gardens – and probably in yours, too – flowers are still in great abundance. Although it’s hard to compare to Spring’s first burst of life, late Summer and early Fall provide lovely happenings in the garden.
Annuals are still bright, bold staples now and will be until frost. And let’s not forget our roses. The shrub roses bloomed earlier but still are producung lovely blooms of bright red, pink and rose-colored lights until they freeze later in the Fall.
But some perennials are just coming into their own now. My favorite canna lily is called “Bengal Tiger”. The name comes from its fabulous green and bold chartreuse striped foliage. The foliage has been around for a while, providing a showy addition to the garden. At this time of year it produces tall flower spikes with amazing bright orange flowers. It’s hard to imagine that it needed any more to enhance its boldness… but the flowers are more!
Also, this is the time for “Sweet Autumn Clematis”, a viney plant with masses…I do mean masses…of small white blossoms. On a fence or trellis or growing up a tree, this is its best moment of the year.
Crepe myrtles are sometimes left as bushy shrubs while others are trimmed up to produce a more tree-like form. Blooming now, they provide a fairly wide spectrum of color around Asheville, North Carolina. Some are quite red, while others are white, and others a salmony-pink. But my favorite is a dwarf that has bright lavender blooms. We are all pleased to see them recovered and doing well, especially since on April 1st and 2nd, 2007, extreme freeze combined with extreme winds decimated so many crepe myrtles, Japanese maples and boxwoods, and about every tulip and daffodil that had bloomed with vigor in that early warm Spring.
Canna
