New plants

I bought several new plants today.

The purple flower is a Salvia leucantha, or Mexican bush sage. It will be nice in the front area where I already have several varieties of salvia. I also bought a Salviagreggi Furmans Red salvia, which has a nice fragrance.

The other two plants I have photographed are both shade lovers, and will go behind the pond. The one with the yellow spots is Farfugium japonieum "Aureamaculata". It has yellow flowers at the end of long stems. The larger, bushy tropical looking plant is a Fatsia japonica Jampanese fatsia. It should make a dramatic look to that back corner of the yard.

I also bought 3 mums, on sale, since they are a bit past their peak. But, they should be nice perennials for the front yard.

Hopefully I can get them all planted in the next few days.

A WOW garden

I spent this past weekend in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Despite a steady, cold rain, we saw several gardens. Most of Saturday was spent at Longwood Gardens. http://www.longwoodgardens.org/ Longwood is more than 1000 acres of gardens, AND has a 4.5 acre conservatory with more than 5,000 plants in it. It was simply unbelievable. I got so many ideas for my little garden space. The mums were spectacular. There is beautiful orchid room that was stunning. The leaves are beginning to turn in southern PA, but there were still many flowers blooming. Unfortunately it was just too cold and wet to be outside for long.

We also got to see the great pumpkin weigh-in. The winner was over 1400 lbs.

We visited Winterthur, but it was just too cold and wet to see much in the gardens. The museum, of course, is fabulous. And, we visited a small garden at an (unfortunately) now nearly abandoned house in Wilmington. The gardens are the Marian Coffin gardens, and are quite nice. The house, Gibralter, was once lovely, but is now boarded up and covered in vines.

All three of these are worth the trip.

Hot October

It is still hot for October. Yesterday and today in the 80s. It is keeping some of the late bloomers pretty. Below are some of what I have now. The blue/purple bush is an aromatic aster, along with a daisy. The red flowers are pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) and the other white flower is a ginger lily.