Getting Ready For The Season Ahead

We often hear customers complain that their gardens look like "big green blobs" after the blooms of spring have finished. This always surprises us, given the wealth of plants available to keep the garden exciting throughout the seasons.

One of the ways we keep our own gardens in bloom after the flourishing months of April and May is to chose plants that repeat bloom or continue to bloom for a long time. We combine these with plants of seasonal interest. Here are just a few simple examples from our borders.

Roses and clematis are among the troopers that we have chosen for long-term interest. In the Rose and Clematis Border, Rosa 'Westerland' (at left) blooms on and on throughout the summer. Not only are the vivid apricot-toned flowers beautiful, they are fragrant. Even better, the thick, glossy foliage of this rose is completely disease-free. We grow the dark purple-flowered Clematis 'Negritianka' (at bottom left) on a trellis above 'Westerland.' This is a combination that is visually attractive until the end of summer.

Long-blooming penstemons also help us. We cut back our penstemon hybrids in mid-April. By June, they have grown to modest shrubs and are beginning to bloom, especially those on our south-facing slope. There, Penstemon 'Margarita BOP' (below right) is a real show-stopper with hundreds of tubular blue flowers with magenta highlights. Nearby Penstemon 'Gilchrist' is also in bloom.

The narrow foliage is distinctive, as are the numerous rosey flowers. If spent bloom-spikes are cut back, these and many of the other garden hybrid penstemons will continue to bloom throughout the summer, some until October. Nearby, we have planted a series of shrubby Salvias, including Salvia muelleri and Salvia 'Hot Lips.' Both of these salvias begin to bloom in June and usually stop their show at first frost. This hillside is in bloom for more than six months. Then shrubs with winter berries provide color.

The fuchsias perform a similar service in our gardens. We have grown fuchsias that are hardy to our area near our front porch next to winter and spring blooming Lenten roses (Helleborus orientalis hybirds). The hellebores are evergreen but their flowers begin to lose their impact by early summer. It is then that low-mounding fuchsias begin to show off.. Together, the two plants provide year-round interest.

This is just a tiny sampling of ideas to help those who need help transitioning from good early season bloom to an equally exciting late season display.

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