Late Summer

It's now late summer here. I have to admit I've gone on a garden frenzy lately, buying mostly tropicals, which are plants I was scarcely interested in before. I have an Epiphyllum (jungle) cactus, three Tillandsias and a Vriesia (bromeliads), two angel-wing begonias, an African violet, a bird's nest fern...what else?

I'm big into bulbs, too. I repotted my rain lilies, and bought a new species Habranthus brachyandrus, which look like small light pink amaryllises with dark purple centers. I have a native spider-lily (Hymenocallis occidentalis), sweet-almond Verbena, a native blue sage (Salvia azurea), and that's about it I think.

My night-blooming gladioli haven't bloomed yet. I've heard they bloom late, but by now I'm starting to wonder if they ever will. I took my xAmarcrinum bulbs out of their pot and put them in the ground. I took my 'Sir Winston Churchill' daffodils out of the ground and may put them in pots.

I was thinking of planting large drifts of daffodils in my back yard. I'll probably go with the cultivars 'Sweetness', 'Kedron', 'Silver Chimes', 'Thalia', and 'Trevithian'. They're my most reliable daffodils.

Although now I'm growing in heavy red clay instead of pure sand. I wonder how that will change things. Last month I amended a test patch of red clay. I applied a copious amount of dolomitic lime and incorporated it down to a foot deep. Then I added straw and alfalfa meal as organic matter down to six inches. Lime and heaps of organic matter are two cure-alls for most Southern soils, whether poor sand or heavy clay. It has been interesting to watch the transformation of the red clay since this treatment. Now the color is more grey/brown, and the texture is very loose and crumbly. Although, when wet, it is still very sticky. I'll want to add triple or quadruple the amount of organic matter. I hope to plant this test area in the fall, maybe with violas and Icelandic poppies.

Here are some recent plant photos:

Wild sweet potato - growing in the woods at my dad's

Sneezeweed - growing at my dad's

Lavandula x intermedia 'Grosso' - this is one of the cultivars of lavender grown commercially in France. I had a nice harvest of it this year. The secret of keeping lavender alive in the South: grow cultivars of L. x intermedia instead of English lavender (L. angustifolia), grow it in a large terracotta pot with sharply-draining potting mix, don't wet the leaves when watering, and keep it in a place where it gets a lot of sun but no rainfall. It can get rainfall in winter, though.

Salvia buchananii

Pycnanthemum muticum, a native mountain-mint. I like the way it smells better than true mint, and it attracts so many pollinators it's unbelievable. 

Lilium 'Black Beauty', old stand-by

Sabatia angularis - a lovely summer wildflower that grows in the woods near my dad's house.

Button-bush, Cephalanthus occidentalis. I'm deeply in love with this native shrub that likes to grow near water. I don't know why people don't grow it more often. Maybe because the flowers last only a couple of weeks.

A native terrestrial orchid growing at the arboretum along with the pitcher plants.