Energizer Flowers in the October Garden of Aaron - Balloon Flower, Rozanne Geranium, October Skies Aster, Chaste Tree and more!

I'm probably revealing my age here, but do you remember the Energizer battery commercials from years past with a battery-powered bunny drummer that kept going and going and going?

That's just the sort of plant I admire in the garden, one that flowers for months and months without much (or any) external intervention.

I actually went away for a few weeks in September and left my garden to its own devices. We had a warm September here in Tennessee -- meaning plenty of days with temps in the 80s and practically no rain whatsoever (0.25 inches for the whole month).

And while the grass got some water from the sprinkler, the garden had to fend for itself without any irrigation. Here's how things looked when I got home:

Red berries on the Aronia arbutifolia, Red Chokeberry

Bunches of black berries on the Aronia melanocarpa, Black Chokeberry.
In prior years, these had some nice fall color. More recently, they seem to get defoliated (perhaps by lacebugs) every year, which doesn't seem to damage the plant much, but certainly eliminates any autumn color.

Autumn Fern (a.k.a. Japanese Shield Fern), Dryopteris erythrosora, I installed two of these in April in a partial shade setting. They seemed to struggle at first, but have since settled in nicely. Yep, it turns out there are ferns such as this that are remarkably drought tolerant once established. In fact, UGA recommends it as a groundcover for Georgia, which tells you it can take the heat (though it's also cold hardy to USDA zone 5). No flowers of course, but the new fronds have a beautiful copper color.

This is Platycodon grandiflora, the Balloon Flower. It had a nice long flowering period in the early summer, after which it formed seeds. Last year, I let the seeds mature and fall to the ground, which resulted in some self-sowing. This year, I trimmed back the plant by about one-third, which prompted it to rebloom vigorously. I've also noticed some bees visiting the flowers this year, which is nice.

Baptisia australis, Blue False Indigo, this has pretty flowers in the spring, but it certainly doesn't fall into the Energizer flower category (the flowers only last a couple of weeks at most), But it's a trouble-free tough native perennial with lovely foliage that stays attractive all year. It is also apparently a host plant for the Clouded Sulphur butterfly, which I have seen in my garden this year for the first time. I just planted some new Baptisias from Prairie Nursery, so hopefully I'll have more Baptisia foliage next year upon which the Clouded Sulphurs can dine.

I planted three small Spicy Globe basil plants in the spring. I hae to say this was not necessarily my favorite basil from a taste perspective. But they formed nice bushy plants (perhaps 8 inches high by 12 inches wide) that were covered with flowers for months and months. As you may be able to see in the left middle section of the photo, the flowers do a great job of attracting bees. So if you're looking to attract pollinators to your garden, a few basil plants could work wonders. And unlike some herbs, they seem to grow perfectly well (at least in Tennessee) in partial shade. Since these got so much attention from pollinators and since I never cut them back, I'm very curious to see whether they will self sow next year.

The Camellia sasanqua by the front porch has started blooming. You can't see it here, but the flowers attract a steady stream of honeybee visitors.

Even though I did not do any deadheading or pruning, the young Vitex agnus-castus (Chaste Tree) began reblooming in early September and was still going strong in early October. These flower spikes almost always have large bees hanging on them from dawn to dusk. They also attract some butterflies, as you can see from the small tawny skipper butterfly in the upper section of this photo.

More big bees on Chaste Tree flower spike

Practically all the cosmos have fallen over, but they usually are tough enough to keep blooming even while lying prone on the ground. And as you can see here, the (slightly out-of-focus) small bees will keep visiting regardless.

You may not be able to tell from this photo, but this (self-sown) cosmos plant has actually fallen across the path, but it is still blooming its heart out. No deadheading required for weeks and weeks (sometimes months and months) of blooms!

I'm not a huge fan of daylilies, but I do have some in my garden that I inherited and more that I added before I decided I didn't like them much. One thing I truly dislike is staring at the dead, dying and damaged daylily foliage after the plants flower. So after doing some research online, I read it's possible to cut the daylilies to the ground and have them resprout fresh foliage (aquilegia will do the same). So I gave it a try and - voila! - it worked! This clean foliage is much nicer to look at from late summer into autumn.

Another clump of daylilies that was cut back to the ground in mid-summer and has since resprouted vigorously with clean light green foliage.

A feather found in the grass. Perhaps from a hawk?

I tried to remove the Ajuga reptans from part of the front border. Clearly I did not get it all. Meanwhile, I had planted an Athyrium nipponicum, Japanese Painted Fern. Again, this is a fern that some sources will list as being drought tolerant (in partial to full shade) once established. This particular fern is called "Ghost" and it's actually a hybrid between the Japanese fern and a native American fern called Athyrium filix-femina. The name seems appropriate, since I thought it was a goner when something (rabbits?) ate it to the ground twice over the summer. Nonetheless, it has popped back to life each time! Clearly tougher than it looks...

My three Hidcote lavender plants (Lavandula angustifolia, also called Lavandula officinalis) have all grown nicely this year, although they haven't flowered much. I fear I may have cited them in too much shade, or perhaps they are just getting settled. The big challenge with growing in Lavender in Tennessee (as I understand it) is not so much the cold - these are after all supposed to be hardy to zone 5. No, the real challenge is our heavy clay soil and winter rains. Lavender apparently cannot tolerate wet winter soils. That said, Hidcote is supposed to be one of the tougher lavenders, so I'll hope these guys can defy the odds and survive until springtime.

At first, I thought my lavender plants would not flower at all this year, but sometime in September they did produce a few tall flower spikes. Since this is my first year growing lavender, I'm not sure when I'm supposed to harvest it for dried flowers / potpourri. 

One of my favorite plants just keeps on giving. Lonicera sempervirens, the native Coral Honeysuckle, produces non-stop orange-red hummingbird-attracting flowers from very early spring to autumn. The flower production has slowed dramatically now, but all those hummingbird (and butterfly) visits have clearly produced results, as the plant is now covered in berries at various stages of ripening. This photo shows all three stages of berries ripening from green to light orange to bright orange-red. I haven't noticed any birds feeding on the berries yet, but American Beauties says that bluebirds, waxwings and many other birds will eat the fruit. 

There are some Aronia berries in this photo, but the intended focus is the lush mass of Melissa officinalis, a.k.a. Lemon Balm, that grew from three tiny sprigs that I planted in April. As you can see, the Lemon Balm has formed a thick weed-suppressing groundcover. And the foliage is darn pretty. The leaves have a nice lemony scent, and I've tried them in a salad and as "lemonade", but alas I could not detect much of a lemon taste. Lemon Balm did not flower this year, but it's supposed to have late spring or early summer flowers that are a big hit with the bees, so I'm hoping it will put on a nice flowering show next year if it feels suitably happy and established. Of course, the real question is how far it will spread and whether I will someday regret having planted it. Only time will tell...

You can see where October Skies aster (Aster oblongifolius) gets its name. These plants are absolutely covered with sky-blue flowers in September and October. And the flowers are visited by clouds of little bees and wasps. It's a delightful plant that has been trouble-free so far for me this year. The dense foliage also does a great job of suppressing weeds. This was my first year growing asters, so I'm excited to see how they perform next year (presuming of course that they survive the winter without any problems).

Just another photo to show how floriferous all three October Skies asters have been. Charming, lovely plants. Unlike some other asters (I'm looking at you, New England asters), that can grow tall and gangly with defoliated lower stems, the October Skies aster stays dense and bushy. And at least this year, it probably topped out at about 12 inches high with perhaps a 14-18 inches spread. Definitely a lovely foreground plant.

Finally, a definite contender in the Energizer bunny category, this is Rozanne Cranesbill Geranium which has flowered for at least four months (early June through early-to-mid October) and will probably keep going until a hard frost with no deadheading or pruning required. (It accepts pruning if it rambles out of bounds, but no pruning is necessary to stimulate flowering.) What's more, I think the foliage quality actually improved on Rozanne throughout the summer and into autumn. One of the first plants I added to my garden, Rozanne has survived a couple of transplants and given me so much joy over the years. I think anyone who can grow Rozanne (hardy to zone 5), should give her a try.

Signs of Life ... and Death?

With the shot of warm air that finally hit Middle Tennessee yesterday (and looks like it will stick around for a while), I had the urge to go out and stroll the garden, taking photos of comeback kid plants and those that have put on a disappearing act.

Here's what I found...

The pink camellia (not sure of the name since it was here when we moved in) is still going strong and covered in blooms. I only fertilize this plant once a year with an acidic natural fertilizer! Yesterday was the first day this year to see a bee working the camellia bush. Definitely a sign of spring!

I wasn't too impressed with Dianthus Firewitch last year. It just kind of sat there, but at least it didn't die in full sun, intense heat and drought. This year, it seems to be expanding. All of a sudden, just in the last couple of days, it is shooting outward in all directions. Love the foliage color. Curious to see whether this will be a long-lived perennial...

One of the two native coral honeysuckles flanking the front steps. LOTS of buds on the plant this year (its second year in the ground). Looks to be establishing nicely. Can't wait to see if a profusion of flowers will attract hummingbirds (as it is supposed to do). Last year, it had a sparse bloom and I didn't see any hummers...

Phlox paniculata 'David' - tall garden phlox. I planted three small plants back in 2011 (so two years ago). All three have come back and multiplied. From one initial stalk on this particular one, it looks like I have about a dozen stalks this year. Exciting!

I was worried that I had killed my Rozanne Geraniums by transplanting them twice last year - first from the full sun back of the house to the afternoon shade in the front. Then transplanted them again to bring these low plants closer to the front of the border where they would be more visible -- and also because I needed the space to put in an oakleaf hydrangea (see below). Anyway, I'm pretty sure these small leaves are the reemergence of one of the Rozanne Geraniums. I see another plant emerging nearby. So that's 2 out of 3 (at least). Not bad for plants that were manhandled roughly last year.

I forgot about this lily altogether until I saw it pushing up boldly in the front of the house! We put in three Stargazer Lilies when we moved in back in 2011. I remember the two in the back of the house in full sun, but the one in the front in afternoon shade has never done much. It looks really strong this year though so I have high hopes!

This is the oakleaf hydrangea I mentioned above. The new leaves are unfurling at the tips of the branches even as the old leaves still hang on. I'd say that our oakleaf hydrangea was semi-evergreen in its first winter, but the old leaves are still beautiful - colorful and almost like they are etched with frost. I think it's exciting to see the new and the old side-by-side, each beautiful in its own way. Look forward to watching this plant undergo its metamorphoses throughout the year.

And now for some not-so-great news. As you can see, the buffalo grass patch is still looking pitiful. Not a single sign of green on any of the tufts. They might be dead for all I know, or maybe just still dormant. Either way, I can't imagine planting a larger patch of buffalo grass here in Middle Tennessee. Even if it is low-growing and green in the summer, I can't imagine having the lawn look like this (or a version of this with the dormant grass more filled in) during 5-6 months from November to April.

Trying to find the bright side of the ridiculously awful buffalo grass, I will say that all the spaces between the dormant tufts provide room for self-sown annuals like this volunteer lettuce to pop up. I plan to eat this soon. It looks better in real life than in this top-down photo.

And alongside the lettuce amid the dormant buffalo grass, I also like to see these adorable violets. They popped up early despite the cold spring and have added a touch of color and movement at a time when almost everything else was dead, dormant, brown or grey. I know some people think of violets as weeds, but I like them in my garden :)

Here's a close-up on a dormant tuft of buffalo grass so you can see just how pitiful and scrawny it looks. Not surprisingly, I had to weed this patch heavily earlier in the winter...

Moving to the front of the house, there are no signs of life on this Clematis integrifolia. I did not really like the plant last year - the flowers were pretty but down-turned on a low plant so that I would have had to lie on the ground to really see them. That's my own aesthetic sensibility - just not much of a fan of down-turned flowers. I don't mind them on Aquilegia (Columbine) but I'm not particularly longing for a Hellebore either for the same reason. Anyway, I figure I'll give this Clematis another week or two to make an appearance or show some signs of life before shovel-pruning it. Or perhaps I'll just cut it way back and see if it ever makes a reappearance...

This is actually one of my biggest disappointments of the spring! You're probably thinking, "That doesn't look like much." You're right - that's the problem! This is one of the three Ceratostigma plumbaginoides (Hardy Blue Plumbago) in my garden. All three of them are just bare little sticks right now. I loved these tough plants last year - they were pretty slow-growing, but they slowly did expand over the course of the growing season and they had the prettiest blue flowers plus lovely red foliage in the autumn. But I have heard these are very late to leaf out in the spring and they seem to be sticking true to that description. It's a pity, because I was thinking to try to propagate these and divide them and buy more to get a large scale Hardy Blue Plumbago groundcover, but I'm not sure I want to do that if they're going to stay dormant this far into the spring. (And that's presuming they do make an appearance and didn't bite the bullet for some reason over the winter...)

This is Geranium maculatum, just purchased via mail order. I don't have a good feeling about this plant to be honest (or most of the other plants that arrived in the same order).  The plant is quite small and some of the leaves have died since I planted it. But Geraniums are kind of tough plants (see the Rozanne above that I transplanted twice last year and still survived) so I'm hoping this one will pull through. I put it near the Rozanne to have a nice mixed Geranium area. That's the idea anyway.

This is Hexastylis arifolia, an ornamental ginger native to the Southeast. It arrived in the same mail order package as the Geranium maculatum above. Again, I think it's looking really pitiful. Only one of the leaves is hanging strong and the rest of the stems have pretty much keeled over. I'll give it time to recover, but I don't think it's looking good. 

OK, let's finish on a high note with some upbeat images. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm loving the Veronica Georgia Blue so far. I added two to the garden last autumn and both stayed evergreen through the winter and are now blooming their pretty little heads off in March and April. They are most floriferous on sunny days. Just beautiful!! Love that shade of blue :)  (This one is in afternoon shade and seems to be spreading a bit wider than the one in full sun, but the one in full sun looks good too, just growing a little tighter.)

I don't have the tag for this anymore, but I believe this is a variegated variety of Agastache foeniculum, a.k.a. Anise Hyssop. I bought this plant late last autumn and it did not have much time to settle in before it went dormant for the winter, so I was a little worried about it, but it seems to be coming back nicely this spring. It is actually supposed to prefer full sun (I have it in an afternoon shade setting) but it's related to mint and mints like moist soil and the full sun areas on my property tend to bake and dry out in mid-summer. So even though it is supposedly drought tolerant, I placed it in afternoon shade. So I may not get as many flowers as I would if it were in full sun, but hopefully the plant will survive and thrive. If I ever get another one, I'll probably try it in full sun just to see what happens, but I'm trying to minimize supplemental irrigation in my garden and find plants that can survive just on rain water (with an occasional  assist in extreme droughts), and I'm not sure that Anise Hyssop would fit that bill in a full sun setting.

Here's another plant that I added late last year. It's hard to tell what's going on from this photo, but trust me when I say this is a top-down view of a dogwood that was sort mistreated by being partially buried alongside a brush pile last winter. Some branches were broken and/or perhaps nibbled by the mice who made their home in said brush pile. Nonetheless, the dogwood seems to have pulled through and is starting to leaf out! Exciting stuff!!

Here's another perennial with a reputation for breaking dormancy late in the year. But it's still up and growing before the Hardy Blue Plumbago. You're looking at the emerging stems of the balloon flower - Platycodon grandiflorus, Mariesii variety. Again, I added this late last year and it still flowered prettily in the autumn, but I was not sure if it had time to settle in before winter. Looks like it did just fine. I love the fleshy purple stems. I believe Platycodon is supposed to be long-lived and able to thrive with little human care. My kind of perennia! Plus the flowers are amazing.

Again, it's a little hard to tell from this photo (given the difficulty my camera has with focusing sometimes), but this is Aronia arbutifolia Brilliantissima variety. All three of my aronias struggled with the heat and drought last year, but they all pulled through and are leafing out nicely. The two A. melanocarpas on the other side of the front steps are a bit smaller, but this A. arbutifolia has lots of leaves and seems to be covered with buds. I'll be amazed if it blooms when it is this small (only about 12-18 inches tall) but it looks like it might just do that! Wow.

Finally, to finish with a favorite, this is the impossibly fresh and clean green foliage of Sweet Woodruff. One of three patches that I have in the garden (another one smaller than this and one that's much bigger). This came from Gardens in the Wood of Grassy Creek (GITWOGC) last autumn and it looks just beautiful. Based on my experiences so far, I can say that GITWOGC is the only mail order nursery that impressed me with the size and health of its plants and their vigor. I placed another order from Dottie at GITWOGC this spring and am looking forward to receiving my plants next week. (Normally, I think she would ship earlier, but North Carolina's spring has been as cold as ours here in Tennessee.) Some folks say that Sweet Woodruff is invasive. I'm sure I'll regret saying this later, but right now I'm hoping it will invade a lot of the bare ground in my landscape beds! ;)