After a really dreadful summer it's wonderful to welcome the cool weather of autumn in the Middle South. What a relief to be able to walk in the garden and find my dear friends blooming. This garden is known for its wildflowers that thrive despite the difficult conditions;
shallow clay soil that's icky sticky in the winters and concrete dry in the summers and an ongoing drought. They have survived the hottest and driest summer in years...
There have been losses, but, the garden is a fall celebration of purples, golds and a flash of red from Salvias!
Without further ado and many thanks to my good friend Cindy/
My Corner of Katy. Here's my Fall Flower Trinity For Thursday.
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| Physostegia virginiana |
False Dragonhead leads the parade of blooming plants and heralds the arrival of hoards of skippers, bees and butterflies to feast upon the nectar.
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| Solidago gigantea |
Not long after, goldenrod begins to nod in the breeze; signally to every bee, fly, wasp, bee imitator and crab spider that they are open for business.
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| Symphyotrichum novae-angliae |
Then the asters join the show. New England asters and
Aster tataricus are the opening acts. Then slowly the blue wood asters, calico and a host of others make the garden a happy place to sit and marvel at nature.
Any day now, when the
Little Asters Everywhere bloom, I will be able to share My Blue Heaven with you. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the Fall Happy Trinity.
Gail
*We have our Spring Happy Trinity~
Phlox pilosa, Aquilegia canadensis and Senecio aureus that dominates the garden. The
post if you haven't already seen it!
Serenity with Trinity! Amazing how wild flowers keep on a trucking when everything else seems to parish in the garden. And I must say, My What Big Asters You Have My Dear! :-)
ReplyDeleteYour Fall Trinity is lovely, Gail. Autumn wonders!
ReplyDeleteThey make great companions.
ReplyDeleteHi Gail, I am sure you appreciate these lovely blooms for being able to survive the heat. Certainly your bees are happy. Beautiful colors and I am so glad you can enjoy your garden in the cooler weather. ;>)
ReplyDeleteHi Gail, since seeing the prairie planting, I have been absolutely smitten with goldenrod. I love it with the red salvia. Red and yellow are just a perfect combination, I intend to have a lot more of these colour in my borders next year.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how nature copes with extremes. We had a very dry winter spring and summer.....I have lost some plants but most have coped. Nature is absolutely wonderful .........
Love your celebration of purples and golds - you prove that plant selection can redeem even very difficult conditions. Very lovely!
ReplyDeleteThe cooler days of autumn should be upon us but at least now, with tropical temps and humidity, we have glorious rain. Love the pics, Gail.
ReplyDeleteThe last shot with the Asters is very nice!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, Gail. There's something about the garden in the autumn that's very poignant - like a goodbye kiss.
ReplyDeleteVictoria xxxooo
I love all three of these plants!
ReplyDeleteThese are certainly three fall beauties! But best of all, you have to love plants like these that can survive whatever conditions nature throws at them. I am becoming more and more smitten with natives like these.
ReplyDeleteThese are the few and the flowering in my garden too. When will the drought end? I am trying my best not to whine, however when you have to have a hose attached to yourself when out in the garden it is not much fun. Sigh~~
ReplyDeleteMy first visit to your blog and I see you are a fellow GWA member.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading about your huge asters, the native varieties I have are a little more tame.
How lovely!
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDeleteThat one word "celebration" brings it home to me. Our gardens and lives are reason for celebration.
Beautiful blooms to welcome Fall!
ReplyDeletePerfection! Nothing like cooler weather to rejuvenate us and the garden.
ReplyDeleteGail the asters are beautiful. I'm sorry it's still so dry there, but at least the temperatures have cooled. The eastern part of NC got a deluge, and I'm other places did as well.
ReplyDeleteYou reminded me of a combination I've been meaning to try: Solidago rugosa and Large-Flowered Aster. S. rugosa grows wild here and is the smallest and most elegant of the goldenrods. Some of the other ones get so big! They look great with the Aster tataricus though.
So pretty, Gail! I thought of you often during our trip to Tennessee last week! I wondered how close you were (to Gatlinburg) and hoped you weren't THAT close because we were car-challenged! I would have wanted to visit, but we were with other family.
ReplyDeleteI now know why your blog is called Clay and Limestone. Oh my...while your clay isn't as tightly compacted as ours, I can see it still presents a challenge for gardeners. Probably the limestone helps with drainage, or at least that's how it would appear to me. In any case...not ideal, is it?
I enjoyed photographing the wildflowers I saw while hiking in the mountains. The Smokies are so beautiful!
What a beautiful trio. I have asters and goldenrod, but I need to some false dragonhead. Great photos!
ReplyDeleteA gorgeous trio Gail. Your bees look very happy with your blooms. I'm still trying to nail down seed for our native goldenrod. Hopefully in time for next year!
ReplyDeleteDear Gail,
ReplyDeleteI'm so impressed with the survival techniques your garden implements. It is truly planted wisely for the conditions. Your trio is lovely. Happy cooler weather and yay for autumn.
Meems
What a lovely bouquet those gorgeous blossoms would make...and the bees seem to think they are pretty special too!
ReplyDeleteIt does seem that we have all encountered extremes of weather this year. But one beautiful sunny not to hot day, and we forget...then once again life is good.
ReplyDeleteThat's the life spirit of gardeners.
Despite the drought, your garden looks wonderful.
Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams
Obedient plant, check. Goldenrod, check, check, check. Aster, check but oops. Not as many as I thought because I ripped some out on accident, thinking they were weeds. Heh.
ReplyDeleteRecently my wife and I took a week trip to our cabin near Tellico Plains to try and catch up to the fall. Was pleasantly surprised by the amount of wildflowers blooming even though we had a drought of 85 days.
ReplyDeleteDuring one of our forays into the surronding woods we came across a flower (??) that we had never seen. After searching the entire web we found it on your blog. WHAT A TREAT! The Hearts-a-Bustin is the most curious I have seen to date. Thank You! I am a subscriber now and look forward to learning more of the native flowers we wish to grow.
We started retirement this past week and are moving full-time to the cabin.
Anything we should do to ready for the spring?? Thanks again for all you do.
Gregg Miller
Lacombe, La.
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