Today's color is "purple", but think of it as a bit broader than that, encompassing lavenders and pinks too.
I'm starting with the new-for-me water hyacinth:
I had a feeling this vigorous water plant would bloom based on its name, but it still surprised me to see this the other morning:
What a beauty!
What doesn't surprise me every year are the Buddleia (a name I can never spell correctly the first time), or "butterfly bush" blooms:
Super-reliable, hardy shrubs that I cut down to the ground every year, and am rewarded with sweet-smelling blooms all summer long (with some deadheading or pruning).
I've got five or more of these, some dark purple, some pink, and some a mixture -- these others grew from seed.
Finally, the king of early-summer purples in my yard, the Agastache foeniculum is starting to fade away...
...but there's still enough there for the bees!
I haven't tried this before, but I'm going to prune a bunch of these very soon to see if I get a second flush of blooms.
More colors to come over the next few days!
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I love seeing the blues in the garden at this time of year - yellow is pretty, orange exciting, but blue is just so cool and somehow seems to calm things down a bit. I convinced my husband I needed a bit of blue in my perennial border (after he declared "NO MORE PLANTS!" What??!) and he has now conceded the blue asters are perfect amidst the coreopsis and asiatic lilies!
ReplyDeleteI still remember the awe I felt when I saw my first water hyacinth bloom. Aren't they wonderful?
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