Nature Contained

August always feels like a slow month. It is usually hot here in New England and we are all a little tired from the early summer gardening rush. By the third week of August, I really start to miss my husband, who has been working really hard as a camp director in NH and I really start looking forward to fall, with all its cozy tastes, smells and textures. I can hardly wait to kiss Ken in a snow hat, enjoy the sound of fallen leaves beneath my feet and to plant fall containers with grasses, Swiss chard and other veggies.

I love day dreaming about fall, usually I can go about it all day, but today I am star struck with some of the plants in the August garden.First and foremost, I love Ricinius ‘Red Spires’. Ricinius or Castor Bean is native to the southeastern Mediterranean and East Africa. Here in happy zone 6a, we can grow it as an annual. This year our little planting shot up 71/2 feet. This particular variety is much darker red than the more common ‘carmencita’. The only real negative to castor bean is that the seeds contain ricin, a potent poison. One milligram of ricin can kill an adult so please do not try to extract your own castor oil or experiment with the pods; you may just earn yourself a Darwin Award. Another staple in the late summer garden is Verbena Boneriensis. I cannot say enough good things about this plant! Verbena boneriensis blooms all summer, never needs deadheading, and is drought tolerant and self sows. It looks best in one big mass; its 36-48” stalks dancing in the wind covered in butterflies. This year we had a handful of Kalanchoe thrysiflora, aka pancake plant in the shop as house plants. On the day we planted the garden, I decided to bring them out, plant them up and give it a go. I must admit they were really cranky at first; they got all scabby and looked as thought they were not going to thrive. After a few weeks, they started flushing out lots of new growth. Kalanchoe thysiflora is uniformly chalky green when planted indoors however, once planted outdoors, the plant takes on a shiner appearance and develops a red margin around the leaf.

Rhus typhina ‘Tiger Eyes’ makes me smile. Hardy to zone 4 its nice 4-6’ compact size, feathery fern-like leaves and ever-changing color keeps in pace with New England’s seasons. Chartreuse in the spring, a brilliant yellow in the summer (with fantastic plum kissed branches), pumpkin colors in fall and a velvet red late fall finish. Bravo!
Eupatorium capilifolum tops my list. A visually quiet plant that has giant feathery leaves that move nicely in the wind. It feels like some sort of aquatic plant to me. This plant is quite hard to find, luckily Jacquie Nooney of Flower Company grows it. She has a beautiful display of eupatorium in her always amazing plantings at Stonewall Kitchens in Kittery, Maine.
Here's our garden as of Sunday, August 19th 2007.