mears garden: Mears Garden news- Summer week 7- August 3, 2009

As the height of the garden color begins to fade it is tempting to pull up the covers and get ready for winter. In fact August sometimes has signaled the end of the garden season, as the end of summer looms. Indeed the days are shorter and those wonderful crocuses are a faded memory at this point.

But check your watch. Midsummer night is still later this week. It could be the end of October before the first real frost. And that is a real long time. There is plenty of time to still plant annuals. In fact I just started some seeds the other day. Why not?

In the garden there are still late daylilies. Sandra Elizabeth will not start to bloom for another two weeks. Flames of Hades has just started. It is this wonderful five foot tall daylily that is a brilliant red orange.
The caladium are going strong and will keep it up for months it seems.
I did get out the hose a few days ago. It had to happen. At the same time I remembered how pleasant it can be to water the impatiens are 6 in the morning when all else is quiet.
I sat down over the weekend on the back driveway and started dividing the clivia. They send up side shoots and about every two years should get separated. They really are beautiful when they bloom. Several were held back and did not start to bloom until a week ago. (See the bonus pictures.)

Finding pictures to knock your socks off is harder than it was a few weeks ago. I did find a few nice pictures.

First is this close-up of the double daylily Savannah Knockout. The color patterns of the sunlight really work well with the complexity of the flower.

The second picture is the Oriental lily Midnight Star.

This third picture is one of the few calla lilies that survived the freeze in my garage over the winter. I have found that if you do not plant them until June they will bloom in August.

Finally here is Sumatra, just about the darkest Oriental lily around. We found this in Virginia about 5 years ago, as a cut flower. We got the name from the florist and then started to watch the catalogues. Sure enough it appeared and is now in commerce. It is special. If only it would bloom a little later.

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Last week you overwhelmingly liked the euphorbia. I was impressed.

Let me know which picture you like this week.
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For bonus pictures this week there are lots of white flowers, from the caladium to the Casa Blanca lilies to the burgmansia.

It is also time for the old reliables, the purple coneflowers and the flocks.

Here is that big clivia. It is a centerpiece plant at this point, picking up the sun spotlight at certain times of the day. There is also the picture of the many clivia plants in their new homes. I even planted a few clivia seeds that were determined to sprout on their own. I do not even want to begin to think about how long it would take for a clivia seed to get big enough to flower.