I took these photos about a week ago. I walked the gardens just now and they are all still blooming!! Ain’t gardening great? Some are looking a bit tired and ragged, but blooms are blooms and it IS November 17th for cripes sake!!
Here in the front garden right off the kitchen steps we will begin our tour……
Lamium maculatum. Pink in front and a new white one in back. These are seedlings from an original ‘Orchid Frost’ I brought home five years ago. I dig the plants up and use them in my mixed containers.
Viola cornuta. This is a sweet violet that I dug up from the floor of the greenhouse at work last spring! It has been blooming all summer!
Gentiana x macaulyi ‘Kingfisher’ this showed up in a previous post, but it’s still blooming with at least 6 flowers on it today!
A very ratty Primula vulgaris pink rose form that has been in bloom all fall. I grew this from seed I recieved through the APS seed-exchange a couple years ago.
And now on to the small rock garden and sunny streamside garden.
Sedum sieboldii. A really great sedum that blooms so late and doesn’t spread rampantly like a few others I had to remove from this garden.
Orostachys iwarenge. One of the coolest succulents I know. It’s also called Duncecaps for the long and pointy flower heads it grows. Earlier in it’s bloom it is covered with bees.
And in the streamside garden which I have cut back since taking this photo is a total surprise in the Nicotiana still looking good after a few frosts and a hard freeze!
Nicotiana langsdorfii which has seeded all over this bed is still amazingly looking very good! It’s in front of a Magnolia macrophylla that I bought from Ellen Hornig of Seneca Hill fame many years ago….before I moved to Vermont. It is enlarging very slowly and I’m pretty sure it will never bloom here but I don’t mind, with those leaves who cares?
Allium thunbergii ‘Ozawa’ the latest blooming Allium you can buy…I think. I also have the white form but it was hidden when I took these photos by a Filipendula aurea. I have divided this plant many times and now have clumps of it all up and down this sunny border as well as potted for sale.
And now onto the shadier woodland gardens on the far side of the house and down the stream where the giant Hemlocks dominate.
Spiranthes cernua or Nodding Ladies Tresses. a hardy terrestrial orchid that is native to the Northeast. I bought this from a wonderful grower at the New York Flower Show this spring. Her nursery Wild Things Rescue Nursery is full of natives hardy for the colder climates.
Cyclamen hederifolium deep pink from John Lonsdale in PA. This one was also in a previous post and here it is weeks later still in bloom! The cyclamens planted here are doing really well. they get a good dry, dormant period here for the summer.
Moving along to the garage garden on my in-laws property where I grow a number of Primula auricula given to me by my good friend Susan. She had to stop growing them because she became sensitive to the primulin in the leaves and stems. It’s a substance that some people develop a sensitivity to and causes severe dermatitis. Susan is a wonderful grower of Primula auricula and I can only hope to be half as good as she is.
Primula auricula with a surprise late flower stem. I hope it will still have blooms in the spring. the flowers are very large on this one.
Now we are around to the lake side of the cottage and here is that Aconitum arendsii hanging on to its last few flowers.
Aconitum arendsii overlooking the lake. You can see our dock at the waterfront.
And lastly in my little nursery is a couple of potted Dendranthema ‘Sheffield’ that had been given to me by another good friend. I planted it into the sunny border where it proceeded to take over the world! This summer I spent long hours eradicating it from said bed and potted up a bunch of it to sell at the fall sale at Tower Hill. The two pots that are left I will split in the spring. The color of this one is so soothing and blends well with everything.
Dendranthema ‘Sheffield’ a very late blooming shasta-type daisy. Great for cut flowers and if you have a large area to fill in. On the far side of the stream is a huge area of the so-called Ditch-Lily. That ‘wild’ Hemerocallis that seems to be everywhere along the roadsides. I want to take it out and wonder if D. ‘Sheffield’ will be up to the task.
Well there you have it. This late in the season and still a bit of color out in the borders! What will this mean for flowers in the spring? More or less or none at all on these plants that don’t usually flower this late.
Primrose Hill Woodlanders 