Mid August

Yellow Foxglove

Well, my time in my garden is coming to an early end this year as in about a week I'll be heading out to Maine for another year of school at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship.  Although blooms have been lacking a bit across the board this sumer (both in the garden and in the wild), it's still been another phenomenal summer in the Rockies.  Moving into the end of August here, I've got a nice Foxglove with pale yellow flowers that it rocking right now. I've got a pink Foxglove as well, but it's nursery stock from this year, so doesn't totally count. . .

Pink Foxglove

My Echinops is starting it's fireworks display.  Here I have a 'Silver Mound' Artemisia, Echinops, and a pink Yarrow clustered together:

Artemisia, Echinops, pink Yarrow, and Golden Hops

Echinops (Globe Thistle) is one of my top perennial picks.  It's not that easy to find up here, and it's spiky leaves can be a little intimidating, but there is something about their unusual spherical blue blooms that I love in the garden.  Once they start to shoot out their 'fireworks' (as I like to call them--not exactly a technical term), you'll be sold too. . .

Echinops Bloom

Another plant that has been hard to find up here the last couple of years, but has done very well for me is a Stachys Monieri 'Hummelo'.  It differs greatly from the wooly Stachys that one typically sees up here, and I've seen it classified as zone 4, but it has grown and bloomed consistently for me for the past 2-3 years.  I've also seen incredible displays of the 'Hummelo' in Aspen.

Stachys Monieri 'Hummelo'

Stachys Monieri 'Hummelo'

I still have some larger day lilies that have budded out and just waiting (for what, I wonder) to pop.  My Peonies never bloomed this year, my Delphinium were less than spectacular, but things are growing. . . Hopefully another month will pass before we start getting frost.