The Circle, Part 2

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To continue on about the plants in my cul-de-sac circle, there are several other plants that have performed well in the full sun, hard-pan clay conditions. In the forefront of the photo above with the purple blooms is Nepeta 'Walker's Low', Catmint. I just added Catmint last year and it is turning out to be a bit larger than I had figured on, but I have the space and am happy to have it growing well. Shearing it after its first wave of blooms will bring on rebloom.
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To the right in the photo, the taller yellow blooming plant is the ubiquitous Hemerocallis 'Stella d'Oro' daylily. My enthusiasm for this plant had dimmed over the years. There are a lot of patches of it in this garden and they could really use dividing. I get 1 good flush of blooms and then next to no rebloom, a clear sign of needing to be divided. Likely I will just gradually replace some of the plants with other yellow blooming plants like Helenium or Heliopsis.



This photo shows a closeup of Allium sphaerocephalum, Purple Drumstick. It is a good naturalizer. I started with 25 bulbs of this back in 2001 and I have lots of large clumps of this throughout the garden. I love the color of it and the only downside is that the foliage gets really ratty as the plant is blooming and as the color fades in the bloom, I've found it's best to just cut the whole plant down to near the ground.

Also in this photo and others of the garden, you can see the soft purple stems of Perovski atriplicifolia, 'Russian Sage'. This is a great plant and is really doing beautifully this year with all the rain we have had, although it can for sure handle drought conditions. It makes a terrific backdrop for the other plants in the garden and it truly a no fuss and easy to grow plant.



Another common plant, but one that I didn't grow until recently is Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus', Coneflower. I added several plants last year and they are forming nice clumps this year. I also spread around some of the seeds around last fall, and I have baby plants showing up here and there. I would like to experiment with some of the new colors of Coneflower but I have heard a lot of negative comments about how well some of them perform, so for now I'll stick with these unless of course I run into a great sale.



I have several grasses that grow well for me, one of which is Festuca ovina glauca 'Elijah Blue', Blue Fescue. I have lost a couple of these plants due to the clay but generally if I cut them back hard in the very early spring, they will rebound really well with lovely new blue foliage. I also grow Schizachyrium scoparium 'Blaze', Little Bluestem. It is a taller blue/green grass that gets a lovely red tint to it in the fall.

Some other plants that do well for me are Coreopsis verticillata 'Golden Showers', an unknown Butterfly Bush, Caryopteris clandonensis 'Longwood Blue' and Achillea 'Terra Cotta'. In looking at the garden now, mid July, I need to add some more late summer, early fall blooming plants. As I mentioned earlier, I think, Heleium or Heliopsis would be good additions and maybe a white blooming coneflower. I'll have to see what I can find at the nursery clearance sales.