October 2014: 1.Garden and Meadow

American Smoketree, Cotinus obovatus, showing it can deserve its reputation as one of the best trees for autumn color

A cultivar of Blue Sage, Salvia azurea 'Nekan', with cream Scabiosa ochroleuca

Blue salvia, Salvia azurea 'Nekan', to the right of the garden steps, and Heart-leaved aster, Symphyotrichum cordifolium, almost meet in the middle. (Wider steps might have been better?)

Heart-leaved aster, Symphyotrichum cordifolius, against the broad, anchoring foliage of Stachys byzantina 'Big Ears'.

Several self-sown plants against the sinuous and sinewy trunks of a nicely aged Trumpetvine, Campsis radicans. The Brown-Eyed Susan, Rudbeckia triloba, is a short-lived perennial, so self-sowing is more or less necessary to keep it going in the garden. Ours used to be ignored by deer, but lately they are eaten early in the season, resulting in short-statured, late-season flowering like this.

The russets and silvers of grasses and seedheads in the west meadow contrast with the bright green path of Sheep Fescue, Festuca ovina, that we call the Great South Lawn. Sheep Fescue is naturally short, but shaggy-- we mow it several times a season.

A few straggling flowers, still, on a self-sown mullein hybrid (Verbascum sp.) growing in the gravel of the SW terrace.

A slope in the west meadow with Little Bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium, Switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, and, at the top, the white flowers of Eupatorium aromaticum 'Jocius' Variegated' 

Eupatorium aromaticum 'Jocius' Variegated'

Eupatorium aromatiucm 'Jocius Variegated'

A bit of sloping short-grass meadow between two stone walls. Broomsedge, Andropogon virginicus, is similar to Little Bluestem, Schyzachirium scoparium. Both turn lovely russet colors in autumn. A bit of broomsedge was present on our place when we came here; we early on transplanted divisions to parts of the young meadow.

The front garden: driveway bed, entry courtyard, and woodland edge. Mulleins still stand tall in the driveway bed with brown seedheads, some stalks still in bloom.

June's new Breadloaf chairs are weathering and mellowing.

Views from the new chairs

Pots on the second story back deck: Cuphea 'Starfire Pink' and Agastache 'Bolero'. The seedheads of Clematis ladakhiana festoon vines that reach from groundlevel to the top of the deck's arbor posts.

Cuphea cyanea, Pink Cigar Plant, on the back deck

Looking from the back deck to the tallgrass east meadow, with its Turkeyfoot, Andropogon gerardi, and our young American Smoketree, Cotinus obovatus

Turkeyfoot's seed heads glint silver in slanting sunlight.

It took several years for our mailorder American Smoketree to show above the east meadow's tall grasses.

One of the recent hybrids between Ivy-leaved and Zonal Geraniums (Pelargonium spp.) on the back deck

Aconitum japonicum subsp. napiforme. Like other monkshoods, a good cut flower.

Our latest blooming colchicum is Colchicum giganteum.

We painted the generator and transformer box with a very dark gray-brown. As we'd hoped, they almost disappeared.

Actea pachypoda, Doll's Eyes

The dark-stained generator and transformer box inconspicuously repeat the colors of shadowed tree trunks.

In turn, the generator's dark stain serendipitously echoes the dark cones of Brown-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia triloba.

Frost Aster, Symphyotrichum pilosum, spreads freely from stolens and has taken over one slope in the west meadow. I keep pulling it out from the rest, including this spot along the driveway under a birch tree; but I always miss some.

Seedheads of Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa, in the west meadow

Young seedheads and the last few flowers on Rudbeckia laciniata, Cutleaf Coneflower

Switchgrass, Panicum virgatum

A late blossom of Purple Coneflower, Echinacea pupurea, in the west meadow

Seeds are visible within some of the translucent capsules of a little cleome look-alike, Red-whiskered Clammyweed, Polanisia dodecandra. Self sown plants turn up here and there.

The more elegant fruits of Butterflyweed, Ascepias tuberosa, will soon open to disperse their silky seeds.

An Aromatic Aster cultivar, Symphyotricum oblongifolium 'October Skies', borders the circle terrace

A very free-flowering volunteer seedling Aromatic Aster, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium, resembles its likely parent, nearby S. oblongifolium 'Fanny's Aster'. The white-striped foliage behind it is Iris laevigata 'Variegata', still fresh and clean looking in the small pool of the circle terrace.

Colchicum speciosum 'Album'

Fruit-laden stems of Rough Blazingstar, Liatris aspera, in the west meadow 

Little Bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium, and the very similar Broomsedge, Andropogon virginicus, in the west meadow

Looking through the arching stems and fading pink flowerheads of Hydrangea paniculata 'Pink Diamond', past the circle terrace gravel to the hill across the valley

Clear structure of the fenced gardens's arbored gateway punctuates the soft forms of the west meadow.

Another arbored gateway (this one without gate) frames the loose planting along this path curving off the entry courtyard. 

The mostly late summer flowers of Heptacodium miconioides are followed in warm falls or warm climates by these bright purple calyx lobe extensions. We get a few at best, but farther south they can be showier than the white flowers themselves

Switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, against the gravel driveway

A small mountain of white blossom from Eupatorium aromaticum 'Jocius' Variegated', and a dark hill in the distance

Eupatorium aromaticum 'Jocius' Variegated', the folly birdhouses in the west meadow, and the fenced garden

Rosa 'Countess Celeste' gives a few of these coral beauties every year on a plant small enough that a very little blackspot does not matter. The small blue flowers are from annual, self-sowing Browallia americana.

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