There is
something innately sad about the September garden – or at least the September
gardens here in New England. They’re glorious in June and July. They even hold
their own in the first part of August. But,
by the end of the month, most everything is spent: the sweeps of perennials are
over the hill with browned-out flowers. Everything looks like it has a layer of
dust on it, even after a rain.
This
morning, though, I went out to collect the newspapers and spotted something unlikely:
a foot-high Scutellaria incana (aka downy skullcap) in full bloom. It
apparently came up late from seed because its large, August-blooming brethren are
sad skeletons picked over by birds and insects.
Then,
looking a little further, I began to see other pods of color – and most of them
were purple and blue-purple. There is
apparently an entire September sub-culture of perennials and shrubs that wait
out the heat of summer and come to life with the cooler nights autumn brings.
I next
noticed several stands of Conoclinium coelestinum, better known as either blue
mist flower or perennial ageratum. I spent hours this summer pulling armloads
of this hyper-aggressive perennial out of places it didn’t belong. I apparently
didn’t get it all because there are several stands of it in the driveway
perennial border. Now, though, it is topped a very attractive blue-purple flower
head, and those flowers are attracting flying insects of every variety. The
perennial ageratum will be given temporary residency papers until its blooms
fade… then it gets pulled out.
In the Magnolia
bed, the Vernonia (ironweed) is halfway into its purple flower. The cultivar, ‘Iron
Butterfly’ has attracted migrating Monarchs for the past three seasons. There
are now four established Vernonia clumps, so there’s no need to push or shove to
get nectar.
The
flowering raspberry (Rubus odoratus) never stopped flowering, but the blue-purple
bloom clusters now seem to be larger, as though it knows that with the first
frost, its leaves will drop like a quarterback being blitzed. I still hate that
the plant puts up canes several feet from the mother plant, but those flower
clusters make it easy to forgive its bad habits.
Geranium
maculatum (common cranesbill geranium) also puts on a minor show in September.
It is one of the first things to bloom in the spring; turning the ground into a
purple carpet. By the end of May, though, it’s just a green ground cover in
need of a haircut. For whatever reason, mine is offering a second, albeit minor,
flowering. I’ll take it.
There is
also Callicarpa americana, with the common name of beautyberry. I have mixed feelings about it during the growing
season and especially in the spring, as it spreads aggressively by runners. There
are now magnificent clusters of tiny purple berries along each of its stems.
The first freeze will harden them off. Then, the birds will descend and pick
them clean within a week or two.
Not to be
forgotten is the Chelonia glabra, or pink turtlehead. It begins growing in June and, by August, is
a nicely proportioned, two-foot-high green bush. Then, seemingly overnight, come
the covering of purple flowers and the butterflies that call the plant their host.
The flowers are all too brief – less than two weeks. But the show is
spectacular.
Finally,
there is Lobelia siphilitica, or great blue lobelia. It comes out of nowhere in
August, growing from the seeds sewn the previous fall. Until it blooms, it is
an ugly duckling of a perennial; squat but also somehow gangly at the same
time. But, when it (and its white-flowering sibling) blooms, it is the belle of
the ball. Birds, alas, pick apart the flowers, but there is so many of them,
the savaging is easily overlooked.
That’s the
purple reign of September. You have to look for it but, once you see it, you can’t
stop smiling.
