My Half Acre of Paradise

I posted on GardenWeb’s design forum asking for ideas on our long, narrow flowerbed that curves around our backyard lawn. We’re hoping to make this flowerbed much more of a WOW next year, with a longer bloom season and more harmonious colors. Right now, it’s too much yellow and purple, high-contrast, with a lot of tall flowers that flop onto the lawn or make messy large masses that don’t look so good. I’m looking forward to getting some advice from the forum.

I’ve wondered why I never see Lavatera tauricensis mentioned online or anywhere, since it’s been such a great flower for me. And I noticed when I visited the Denver Botanic Gardens this summer that there was a very similar, if not identical, flower growing there, but it had different, more lobed, leaves. Well, I may have an answer.

A little search for Lavatera tauricensis found the following on a page at www.malvacea.info:

thuringiaca Tauricensis group: Sold under the name Lavatera tauricensis, I suspect that these are plants derived from the population of Lavatera thuringiaca found in the mountains of Crimea, and are better considered as a horticultural group, rather than a distinct natural taxon. These plants are upright, relatively compact, reaching 3-4 ft. in height when in bloom. They flower from July until the frosts, bearing rose pink flowers. They are winter hardy in continental climates, but may not be reliably hardy in the wet condition of a British winter. However copious, readily germinating, seed is produced, so replacement plants are easily obtained.

So, it’s likely this plant is actually an unusual sub-variety of Lavatera thuringiaca, which normally has more lobed leaves than my plants but pretty much identical flowers.

Well, the season is getting pretty late now, but there are a few late bloomers hanging on, hoping for warm Indian summer days! Here are some of the things we’re still enjoying in our yard:

The ‘Pink Simplicity’ roses have done better this year, with more regular watering and fertilizer. I finally trimmed them back on August 11th, and they grew back with lots of buds. Maybe I won’t replace them after all. We’ll see how their spring bloom is next year. On the right is Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’ — always a great flower in the early fall.

These are shots of Caryopteris clandonensis, or Blue Mist Spirea. It’s not really a spirea, but that’s a common name for it. It is EXTREMELY attractive to bees, so I had to move these away from our deck a few years ago. My wife and kids definitely didn’t like being near all those bees!

I learned this summer that — yes, indeed — Shasta Daisies will rebloom if you cut back the dead heads in July. I didn’t do that to all of them; I tried an experiment (either that or I was too busy to do them all!) and cut some back to see if they behaved differently than the others. Yes, they did, so now I’ll shear back the tips to just cut off all the spent blooms every July. Nice to know it works! The other shot is an annual African daisy — Dimorphotheca. They didn’t do very well, because I think they didn’t get enough hours of sunlight in the places I planted them in the front flowerbed.

And last, but definitely not least, I have been very impressed with these new Delosperma cooperi iceplants that I grew from seed this year. They flowered very quickly and have continued to flower all summer and now into the fall. This is a wonderful plant!

On Saturday the 29th, we got our first snow flurries in the valley. It was a cold, cold storm! We drove to Payson for a high school marching band competition, and it was 32° with snow coming down pretty hard and lots of wind. Our poor daughter had to march in that weather on a muddy field! But she had fun and the band took first place.

This photo was on Sunday, and most of the snow on the mountains had melted that afternoon. You can just see a little on the peaks far in the background.

The leaves on my trees haven’t started changing yet, except for the Japanese maple by the front door, and the viburnum bushes in the foreground are starting to change. My front flowerbed looks pretty empty, because I spent a lot of time on Saturday removing things, dividing some of them, and transplanting other things.