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 think it might be safe to say that we’ve been even busier than bees in the last couple of days. And by “we” I mostly mean the garden volunteers. Gail, Tara and I placed … must be hundreds! of annuals and tender perennials in the Cutting Garden; a few more in the big Display Garden bed; over a hundred in the North Garden; a baker’s dozen in the Rock Garden; and Dick and Cathy placed dozens of tomatoes in the vegetable bed. And almost faster than we (by “we” I mean Gail, Tara and I) could say “please”, they were planted, fertilized (we use Espoma Bulb-Tone, which is a slow-release granular organic fertilizer with a ratio heavy on phosphorus) and watered.

Even though we (Gail, Tara and I) have been working hard to stay one step ahead of the volunteers – I couldn’t even catch a moment to take pictures as they took the tulips out last week – I’ve found that it’s actually absolutely imperative to pause now and again to take in the changes. The other day I almost couldn’t help but stop for Virginia waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum) blooming in the Bosquet: evidently they have never bloomed so abundantly because neither Gail nor I had felt the need to learn its name before. I also don’t ever remember detouring to take in the stunning contrast of flower-like samaras are on the full-moon Japanese maple (Acer shirasawanum ‘Aureum’). And even if we hadn’t had to get to the Rose Garden to place more plants (another 100 plus for tomorrow’s crew) I would have made a special trip to see the Chestnut rose (Rosa roxburghii) and my all-time favorite weird peony (Paeonia ‘Alley Cat’) in full bloom. (Click on pictures for a better view.)

Are you in a planting frenzy in your garden too? And taking time out too, to take it all in?

Punxatawney Phil didn’t see his shadow the other day and we all know that means spring is right around the corner. (Wahoo!) Gail and I are definitely feeling winter suddenly pick up speed and are switching gears and counting the milestones.

Now that we’ve sent in the seed orders we can turn our divided attention back to the plants. (Our attention is always divided, or so it feels. Right now we’re being pulled away to meetings, seminars, trade shows, etc – all good stuff! – but what we wouldn’t give for a week of blank days…) I already mentioned in the last post that the plants in the greenhouse are starting to put on new growth – and you know me with the new growth – I’m captivated by it. For some plants – our tender perennials in particular, new growth showing means it’s high time to cut the plants back. There are a couple of reasons we do this: one is, if we didn’t the plants would be leggy and weird next season. Cutting them back also encourages a big push of new growth, which we use for cuttings and we’ll start those around the end of this month.  (We’re old school in the way we make new plants too – no tissue culture for us. I suspect in this case, most gardeners continue to do as we do too.) We’re still enjoying the flowers and seed heads on some but when it’s time, it’s time. They’ll be blooming stupendously again before we know it.

Are you wintering over any tender perennials? Which ones? Have you cut them back yet?