{"id":2564,"date":"2011-09-22T10:27:46","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T14:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/?p=2564"},"modified":"2011-11-02T08:53:31","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T12:53:31","slug":"late-summer-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/?p=2564","title":{"rendered":"Late Summer Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New England Aster<\/p><\/div>\n

Gardening Gone Wild<\/a> is once again hosting it’s Picture This Photo Contest<\/a>, this time on the theme “Late Summer Garden”. \u00a0Christa Neu<\/a> of Organic Gardening will be the judge. \u00a0For us, I am only too happy to move to the end of this gardening summer. \u00a0The weather has been to all extremes and far from conducive to poking about in the garden. \u00a0However, as of today, there is sunshine coming through the trees and the benefits of last nights drenching rainfall percolating through the soil.<\/p>\n

There are some striking end of season flowers to be seen around the hill today. \u00a0I had lamented about not planting a cardinal flower this year and then found this scarlet sage coming up in the wild flower garden in the triangular field.<\/p>\n

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Salvia coccinea<\/p><\/div>\n

In the same little patch of wild flowers I find a very pretty Cosmos as well.<\/p>\n

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Cosmos<\/p><\/div>\n

Does it count as gardening if all you do is toss the seed out and then come back two years later to see what is prospering?<\/p>\n

At the back of the garage a single St. John’s Wort flower is in evidence. \u00a0Even with insect damage it still looks exotic.<\/p>\n

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St John's Wort<\/p><\/div>\n

And the loropetalum (a witch hazel relative) has come fully into flower. \u00a0I think it was supposed to bloom in the spring but at that point it was on death’s door, having barely survived the winter. \u00a0Now, however, it’s covered with beautiful fuchsia-colored straps that are striking against the purple foliage.<\/p>\n

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Loropetalum<\/p><\/div>\n

Another very positive find for this time of year was on one of the rosemary plants that we put out this year. \u00a0Ever since we saw the rosemary in bloom out in Sedona we have been watching our’s (mostly Tuscan Blue) for some more of those gorgeous blue flowers. \u00a0We have some we winter over in the garden and some we’ve taken inside. \u00a0In no case have we had any blooms until finally this year on a single little plant that I put in the garden after torturing in a tiny pot most of the year. \u00a0And now I don’t even remember which variety it is.<\/p>\n

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Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) in flower<\/p><\/div>\n

Another flower with orchid-like shape for this time of year is the toad wort. \u00a0We have a particularly nice one with gold margins on the leaves which is very well behaved (some of the trycyrtis grow rampantly).<\/p>\n

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Trycyrtis (Toad Lily<\/p><\/div>\n

For the GGW contest I was originally thinking of using an image of the sweet autumn clematis which has been really dramatic for us this year.<\/p>\n

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Sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora)<\/p><\/div>\n

The swath of clematis is the first thing you see at the back garden now.<\/p>\n

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A little closer view of Sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora)<\/p><\/div>\n

I realize that for some people this clematis is a bit aggressive. \u00a0We have yet to see any seedlings here. \u00a0Yet when I drove to Cape May last week this very same clematis was everywhere, draping all the roadsides and fields.<\/p>\n

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Clematis in understory at Cape May<\/p><\/div>\n

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Yellow warbler astounded by clematis flowers<\/p><\/div>\n

In the end, I’ve decide to enter a photo of the New England Asters that are just coming out right now. \u00a0New England Asters are a native flower found widely across the U.S. \u00a0Though mine are undoubtably a cultivated variety the shared characteristic of all these asters is a brilliant purple daisy-like flower with yellow centers. \u00a0They are particularly striking representatives of the late summer garden.<\/p>\n

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New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gardening Gone Wild is once again hosting it’s Picture This Photo Contest, this time on the theme “Late Summer Garden”. \u00a0Christa Neu of Organic Gardening will be the judge. \u00a0For us, I am only too happy to move to the end of this gardening summer. \u00a0The weather has been to all extremes and far from conducive to poking about in the garden. \u00a0However, as of today, there is sunshine coming through the trees and the benefits of last nights drenching rainfall percolating through the soil. There are some striking end of season flowers to be seen around the hill today. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,29],"tags":[38,52],"class_list":["post-2564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flowers","category-ggw-photo-contest","tag-flowers","tag-ggw-photo-contest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2564"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2641,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2564\/revisions\/2641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/macgardens.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}