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| Balloon Flower |
Part of the fun of having a perennial garden is looking forward to each plant as it blooms throughout the season. When a perennial blooms, flowering usually lasts about 3 weeks. There are exceptions, (such as my phlox and coneflowers that seem to flower all summer), but in order to have continuous color, early, middle and late season varieties have to be included. If the early varieties are cut back after blooming, I might get a second blooming in late summer. I noticed today that the yellow coreopsis that flowered, then was deadheaded in the spring, is now full of new buds again!
Some of the varieties in my garden that don't flower until late summer and fall are balloon flower, turtlehead, aster, mum, Joe Pye weed, sedum, ornamental onion, plumbago and iron weed.
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| Joe Pye Weed |
Joe Pye Weed is supposed to attract butterflies, but I haven't seen one on mine.
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| Plumbago |
Plumbago makes a nice ground cover. It grows about 6" tall.
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| Sedum |
The sedum is just starting to show color and the honeybees love it!
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| Turtlehead |
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| Ornamental Onion |
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| Ironweed |
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| Chrysanthemum |
It's the time of the summer that we hear the constant buzzing of cicadas. This morning in the garden I spotted one on a daylily leaf among the blue leadwort flowers. The bottom of the photo shows the green-winged nymph clinging to the leaf with its newly shed brown exoskeleton at the top.
