The tall asters, now known as Symphyotrichum, will be finished with their impressive run by a week from now, leaving only some of their smaller cousins to carry on the garden show. The fall-blooming colchicums will also have finished their day in the sun, leaving only a few fading petals on the ground to show … Read more
Clearly nobody has informed the catmint and columbines in my garden that the end of the growing season is fast approaching. The columbines or acquilegia are excellent self-seeders and they have had a banner year. I spent a morning moving young columbine seedlings to places where they will do some good and not get stepped … Read more
The tall asters that dominate my front garden used to be known to dirt gardeners and botanists alike as “asters.” Botanists and plant taxonomists now call them Symphyotrichum, a name that makes simple plants sound complicated and inaccessible. Everyone else still calls them asters. I hope the plant taxonomists will take the hint and rescind … Read more
A few days ago I read an article in The Telegraph, an English newspaper, on the fabled long borders at Great Dixter, an estate garden that was the longtime domain of the late plantsman and author Christopher Lloyd. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/9552586/Great-Dixter-gardens-going-out-in-a-blaze-of-glory.html) Great Dixter is open to the public full time, so the beds and borders have to … Read more
Butterflies delineate the transition from early to late fall. Choice food plants–asters and butterfly bushes—are in bloom in my garden now, in mid September, and Monarchs and skippers dance among the flowerheads. Summer’s swallowtails are mostly gone, but the ubiquitous Cabbage Whites persist. A few stragglers remain from the horde of Painted Ladies that descended … Read more
