Midsummer replacement
>> Friday, August 10, 2018 –
flowers
The walkway garden has been quite nice this year with a couple of summer additions. There are a few plants that are spent though, and it's time for a refresh.
If you can ignore the white-hot spot of sunlight on the wonderfully silver foliage of the Artemesia ludoviciana, you can see the tired green of the cleome surrounding it. Blech.
***
I love cleome -- as do the bees -- but when it stops blooming...
...it has to go. These have already dropped lots of seeds, so it will be back next year (and many years after). This is what the few blooms left look like:
Those were once nicely pink!
The replacement has a bit more punch:
Nothing too exotic: celosia!
This one had two nice plants in there...
...so I separated them and put them in pots for more height.
Now that's pink!
I didn't have the heart to pull out the cleome, but I did snap off most of the spent "arms". If I force some extra blooms out of these, it will just add to the fun!
Incidentally, the foliage refresh I did at the other end of this bed...
...is looking pretty fantastic too.
I heard a sad thing while at the nursery buying the celosia: the fall annuals would be coming in next week. Fall?!
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As usual, I'm in denial that summer will end. The fall annuals are simply coming in way to early, kind of like the back to school displays in stores that start popping up on July 5. People like to plan ahead, right? While I love autumn, I'm not ready yet to stop reveling in glorious summer. Your replacement plants are looking marvelous!
That Celosia is a great color that complements the silvery Artemesia. Good choice.
Fall? I wish. We have a long stretch of hot weather ahead yet.
When I saw the first pictureI I wondered "walkway garden? I don't see a walkway". But as I read on, I realized there is a walkway. And it's looking GOOD. Love the hand crafted tall element you added, it looks beautiful with the celosia.
Fall is my favorite season, so I say Yay!!!
what a great refresh!