With the coming of cooler temperatures, especially at night, and some actual precipitation, we can safely get back to gardening. There are plenty of interesting things to plant now to extend your colour season, including Helenium 'Ruby Tuesday', which is a real great pollinator plant.
Several of us have been discussing the newer cultivars of coneflowers, and comparing notes on how well they are performing after several years of being available. This is Green Envy planted out and holding its green/purple bicolour petals quite well. Some of the containerized ones seem to have lost much of their green colour, and we're wondering if this is a response to the dry conditions we've been having.
'Harvest Moon' is a great performer, and just keeps on pushing lots of great gold flowers. If you deadhead your coneflowers they should keep pushing new blooms until a hard frost.
This year we are pleased to have a fall-flowering gentian for sale: 'Kingfisher' has very fine foliage and rich blue flowers. We expect it will be popular as more of the plants pop into bloom in the coming days and weeks.
Some of our magnolias are continuing to push new flower buds and beautiful flowers. This one is especially fragrant, and when it's in bud it looks like a large white pearl.
We refer to the Peegee type hydrangeas as Cemetery plants because they are so often planted in old graveyards around Nova Scotia. Currently, we have two varieties for sale, 'Pink Diamond' and 'Strawberry Fraise'. We also have the oakleaf hydrangea for those who can grow that handsome variety.
The buddleia continue to shower us with fragrant flowers, and while the hummingbirds seem to have left for the season, there are still lots of butterflies and bees enjoying the flowers and their sweet nectar and pollen.
Are you growing hardy succulents in your garden, or in containers? They are such easy care, and rewarding plants. These planters contain Jovibarba and Sempervivum varieties, not bonsai!
Hardy Iceplant has hot pink flowers and is an excellent choice for a rock garden. You can also see a bit of an Opuntia (prickly pear) cactus in this photo, but it's not blooming this year as it was newly planted. We'll have that to look forward to next year, however.
The Miscanthus grasses are putting on a spectacular show in the grass section of the nursery, and on the wall where we have many different species planted out. We love miscanthus, or Japanese silvergrass, because of its silver-green-rose flowerheads, which all fade to silver-white and last well into the winter.
These are just some of the plants we have blooming and for sale at the nursery. Please note we're closed on Mondays now but are open the rest of the week 9-5. Do come in and let us help you plan your fall plantings!
