Foliage Followup -- September 2013

So many flowers have gone past now that fall is (almost) here. It's the foliage that will carry the garden from here till next spring! Here's a selection of some of the foliage stars in my garden right now.

Red Twig Dogwood is starting to turn

There's a lot of orange showing up in the Cercis canadensis 'Forest Pansy' foliage

Melianthus major is still pumping out new leaves

Love that pleated foliage

The same with my purple Melianthus

Glowing in morning sun

Heuchera 'Tiramisu' and 'Snow Angel'

Farfugium japonicum 'Aureomaculata' and Carex

Carex, Heuchera, Impatiens omeiana and Pulsatilla

Ligularia 'Dragon Wings'

Wait! What's this bright green thing doing in the bugbane foliage? Hold still, so I can catch you and take you to Portland for the Bloggers Swap. I wonder what Loree will give me in exchange for you?

Loropetalum

Castor Bean foliage with Brugmansia -- There was a Castor Bean here last year in a pot, which dropped seeds into the gravel, now there's a baby growing in the gravel amongst the pots

Begonia luxurians

Musa sikkimensis 'Red Tiger'

New banana leaf unfurling

Solanum quitoense

Check out Pam Penick's blog Digging here, the host for Foliage Followup on the 16th of every month. Join her and other bloggers in celebrating the beauty of leaves!

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day -- September 2013

It's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day! There aren't a lot of plants flowering right now, everything seems to be powering down. But here's what ongoing in my garden that I haven't already posted about recently.

Penstemon

Cimicifuga? Actaea? I've lost track -- but the bees love it!

Coreopsis 'Red Shift'

Tricyrtis formosa

Cyclamen

Dahlia

Caryopteris x clandonensis

Caryopteris x clandonensis 'Worcester Gold' with a more chartreuse leaf

Agastache 'Acapulco Orange' (I think)

Coreopsis Big Bang Series in the gravel garden

Ornamental Oregano and black Mondo grass

Ornamental Oregano

Aloe glauca

Calendula officinalis (from a Solar Flashback mix, but it looks rather ordinary)

With Coleus 'Marooned'

My new Bougainvillea, bought at WeHop during the Kitsap Peninsula nursery romp

My Abutilon has been pumping out flowers non-stop for the entire spring and summer.

 Are the seedheads of grasses considered flowers? Well, I'm including them here.

Japanese Forest Grass (Hakonechloa macra)

Chasmanthium latifolium in morning light

Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii)

'Blonde Ambition' grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis)

Are you participating in Garden Bloggers Bloom Day? It's hosted by Carol Michel at May Dreams Gardens. Check out her post here, and then be sure to check out all the links left by other bloggers around the world too.

Where Do You Blog?

Recently Hoover Boo on the blog Piece of Eden wrote a blog post asking people where they blog, whether they have a view, and who stares at them, as well as answering all of those questions as they pertained to Hoov's own situation.

Anyway, we are going through summer's last gasp here right now, so instead of gardening, I just wrote 5 blog posts in a row, including this one.

This is where I sit when I blog.

This bookcase full of books is behind me against the wall. This is probably about half the number of books we owned when we lived in Massachusetts. We gave a lot away before we moved to the PNW.

There's a window just to my left, and this is my view.

Directly across the street.

You're in luck, because often there are one or two cars parked on the front lawn where those two white chairs are. They have an entire array of working and non-working cars and trucks and things that go in the back mostly out of sight. They also have a very noisy truck with no muffler that starts up every night at 4 a.m. We have no air conditioning, so in the summer when it's hot we sleep with our windows open. Until about 4 a.m.

The view to the left through the blinds where you can see my front bed with the Forest Pansy redbud.

The view to the right of my blooming Brugmansia, lilacs, and part of the gravel garden.

Who stares at me? Well, no one actually stares. Lightning just haunts me when I'm sitting there, and when she's hungry and wants to annoy me she paces back and forth across the keyboard.

Lightning, managing to be in two places at once

My other cat Magellan likes to sleep at my feet in the kneewell under the desk, and often when I sit down there I don't notice her, until I end up poking her with my stockinged feet. And then she pokes back, with pointy parts.

The barely awake eye-slit to see if I'm going to bother her with the camera.

Nigel doesn't come up here to the second floor and stare. Often when he wants to tell me something or show me something, he sends me an email from his own computer downstairs.

Where do you blog? And what's your view? Does anyone stare at you? Go to Hoover Boo's post and tell us all about it.

My Favorite Plant in the Garden Right Now...

...Is Perilla frutescens 'Magilla.' I bought this Coleus look-alike earlier this spring at Sky Nursery, which I blogged about here. It's done very well in my garden in the ground, as a companion to Echinacea 'After Midnight.' It's growing in a bed near the stream, under the spreading branches of a red twig dogwood. Also in the bed with it are a handful of Black Mondo Grass, some Prairie Smoke, and a couple of daylilies, which have long ago petered out and are now just strappy foliage.

It has been wonderfully drought-tolerant all summer, never missing a beat even when I forgot to water that bed. The enormous Darmera nearby was not so forgiving. According to Ball Horticultural, it's sterile, so no rampant self-sowing like the all-purple version of Perilla. In fact, it hasn't even flowered yet, so unlike Coleus I haven't needed to pinch it back at all. I haven't given it any fertilizer either. I think next year it will make a great companion to the tropical Cannas, bananas, and Colocasias that I'd like to put in my new tropical bed. I plan to take cuttings and root them like I would a Coleus, which I hear should work well. From what I've read online, it takes to rooting in water quite well. I've also found references online to it being deer-resistant (a problem I don't have with my fenced back garden). Of course, deer will try anything once.

It's a nice, compact plant.

Love that magenta stripe down the center of the leaf

It's been a great companion to Echinacea 'After Midnight'

Here are some stats.

Height: 18-24 inches
Width: 18-24 inches
Hardiness: Zone 10-11, so for me it's an annual
Sun: Full Sun to Part Shade
Soil: Fertile, well-drained

The Favorite Plant in the Garden meme is hosted by Loree at danger garden, who's current post is about Senecio mandraliscae, or Blue Chalk Sticks, a tender succulent. Check out her post here and see what other bloggers are writing about as their favorites.