Looking back at my past December Garden Blogger Bloom Day posts I’m actually a little bit surprised that I remembered them wrong. I thought we had had late color in years past but this year really is unusual for the length of the lingering fall.

A lot of the plants in bloom now are the ones that are simply unwilling to give up. Here’s a little list of our hangers-on:

Other plants are blooming out of all proper sequence. I expect that of forsythia and the autumn-blooming cherry (in fact off-season bloom is the reason Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’  is so special) but flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) really shouldn’t be blooming now (I couldn’t get a shot of ours because the few opening buds are at the tippy top of our largest shrub.) So many of the buds on the quince are swollen that I really fear for the inevitable frost-bite blast that could do in our spring show. And the skunk cabbage is a full 4 months early. Not all of those are up but enough of them to make me worry if there will be few for the bees come March. Or maybe the same plants will push out another round?

Are you worrying like we are about what a lingering fall might mean for spring?

Head over to May Dreams Gardens for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and a look at what else is in bloom this December…

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens) is the best excuse I can think of to show off some of my favorite weirdos. I know my cup of tea isn’t to everyone’s taste. For one thing, I tend to gravitate towards anything with nearly invisible green flowers like crazy-cool petal-less Boltonia ‘Nallie’s Lime Dot’ (below). It comes into bloom-ish in early September and is supposed to be about 4′ tall. Ours grew taller and then probably because it was shaded by our new dawn redwood hedge, flopped right over to hang with an aster. It holds up really well in arrangements so I’ll probably vote to move to a sunnier spot in the cutting garden. I also adore little Nicotiana ‘Delaware Indian Sacred’ (right) obviously because it’s green but also because it seeds itself around and is in bloom in one place or another all season long.

And ’tis the season to love the seedheads. They may look gone-by to some but I prefer the black knobs of rudbeckia sans petals. And aren’t teasel and cardoon at any stage wildly wonderful?

There’s probably nothing weirder than Amaranthus ‘Dreadlocks’ full stop.

And every late-summer/fall I rediscover cuphea. (Who doesn’t?) Suddenly though I’m head-over-heels for a cuphea that probably nobody else here has noticed.  Cuphea ‘Ballistic’ is a tiny little plant with mouse faces that ended up tucked under a whole bunch of other stuff (mostly other cupheas) in the kid’s bed. I vow to put them somewhere front and center next year and took a bunch of cuttings yesterday for insurance.

Speaking of taking cuttings, the speed of the season took us by surprise. (How did it get to be mid-September already?!) We usually start taking cuttings in late August/early September but have only now begun in earnest. If the same thing happened to you and those beautiful cut-able tips that emerge in late summer have since grown and flowered, cut your plants back in a few places to encourage new growth and check again in a couple of weeks.

What’s weird or wonderful in your garden right now? When did you start taking cuttings?

I’ll use the excuse of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (generously hosted as always by Carol at May Dreams Gardens) to show off a few more of the attractive plants in and around our pollinator’s garden. It’s been really fun talking to visitors about all of the activity and noticing who goes in for a closer look and who takes a few apprehensive steps back. The bees and wasps don’t seem to mind either reaction, they’re so intent on taking it all (the nectar and pollen that is) in. Would you go in for a closer look at all the busyness or are you more comfortable with a little distance between you and any insect activity?

Click on pictures for larger view or mouse over for captions.

There are lots of names for July’s full moon, which was full in the wee hours of this very morning, but Full Thunder Moon seems the most appropriate this year. (Full Buck Moon and Full Hay Moon are other choices…) We’ve been lucky enough to have had a couple of good storms within the last week and the gardens are loving the infusion of rain – almost 3″ last Friday and another 1/2″ish Wednesday night. This last storm broke the heat wave and I can’t ever remember more heavenly July days than these last two. It’s not too hot or too humid – it’s juuuuust right. I hope you’re getting to enjoy a Goldilocks-perfect mid-July too!

With so much coming into bloom now I might be crazy to try to identify June’s quintessential color. (I might be crazy full stop.) There are some great colors to choose from: take anything in the Rose Garden for instance. ( – I had to include another gratuitous Rose Garden shot because it’s so thrilling. And I think you can just about smell it from the picture if you concentrate.)

I also think that while blue is one of the colors that defines late spring/May, the dusky blues of June – like the Berggarten sage (Salvia officinalis ‘Berggarten’) in the herb garden – are completely different and entirely June-ish, evocative of June’s extra-long twilight. Of course my favorite sweet pea ‘Nimbus’ takes dusk to a-whole-nother level of stormy, also perfectly appropriate given the wild and wooly weather lately. But then that brings me around to the wooly ivories of things like Filipendula, Clematis recta, giant fleece flower (Persicaria polymorpha) and the Clary sage (Salvia sclarea) that has been catching everyone’s eyes this week. You just don’t see that color in July, not even in the clouds. Or else I don’t notice it the way I do in June.

And there’s a certain hot pink that seems to belong only to June although I’d have to say it’s a great color for introducing us to the notion of July. It’s about to burst on every Spirea japonica in that shocking combination of pink and yell-green (I had meant to type “yellow-green” but yell-green’s more like it) and it’s already capping the catchfly (Silene armeria).

When it comes right down to it I can’t decide – and don’t they all look like June in Terry’s arrangement? So in honor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, I’d rather put it to you for a vote anyway.

What color do you think defines June?

Almost everybody I’ve talked to lately has complained that spring seems late this year. It is if you compare it to last year but that spring came two weeks early and headed full steam for summer. According to my calendars (and blog posts) from a few years prior, this spring is right on target if not a little ahead. I think what it is getting us all a little down in the dumps is the fact that we’ve had very few of those blissful, sunny, 70 degree blue-sky days and a whole lot of raw, windy and damp ones instead. And this week, forecast to be rainy day after rainy day, isn’t likely to lift our spirits any higher than the floor. The only thing for it is to wallow in the spring blues.

There’s no shortage of the color blue in summer’s gardens but to me blue is never more beautiful than in the spring when it positively glows against other colors – particularly the chartreuse and limey-shiny greens of fresh foliage. And isn’t it even more vibrant on a grey day? – Easier to photograph too. (Hover over for captions and click-on for larger view.)

Do you have the spring blues too? Which are your favorites?

Don’t forget to head over to May Dreams Gardens for a Garden Bloggers Bloom Day look at a few other colors blooming today (er – yesterday.)