Lush, indeed! Those flamin' red hibiscus are really something!

The greenery here is plump and filled in, but I had all kinds of stuff toppled in high winds that we've had on numerous occasions, so that's really detracting from the late summer display I usually have going.

You mentioned tomatoes -- It has been an unusually cool summer, particularly the night temps; consequently my tomatoes and melon s*ck this year. Utterly terrible. Even the cherry tomatoes are relatively tasteless.

I like either the pale pink or red hibiscuses. I think the ones you are seeing in the front bed are ’Fireball’ which also have nice purple Japanese-maple-like leaves! There are also Luna Red and Lord Baltimore (I think that’s the name…) red ones and there is Midnight Marvel red ones near the ninebark shrub in the south driveway border. The various hibiscus varieties bloom from July into mid-late September! So they make showy plants for the late-season garden :-)

We’ve been lucky to get nice rain but not too much wind here. We only grow cherry tomatoes and in pots on the driveway. They benefit from DH watering the pots and the heat from the driveway - plus we had a lot of heat this summer! It’s nice to have pasta sauce made with nice, fresh tomatoes :-) We also grow basil in pots for the sauce.

re the hosta - I haven’t checked for fragrance yet because I’m not outside much these days! IDing it might have to wait until next year! Having tbe ash tree taken down last year has made the backyard hotter this year as there is less shade out there - although there is still more shade than we expected due to the trees to the west, on our property and on neighbouring properties. We have been lucky to get a good amount of rain and, while it has been very hot, the ’cooler by the Lake’ effect haskelt us a couple of degrees cooler than a bit more inland locations.

Woody, I agree with Peren.all, that your garden always looks great and well cared for! I particularly love the backyard, that looks very lush and calming. I've always thought the green color of the shed was a great choice. Such a shame about your Heptacodium Tree! And that Red Hibiscus is a standout! I don't always love every red shade. Any that lean toward orange don't appeal to me, I like a clear red or leaning toward a burgundy or violet. From your photo your red looks like clear red. My Hibiscus has it's last bloom on it today and I've ended up with one seed pod that I left on the plant, wondering if I might try to start some from seed.

This has not been a great growing season in my garden. We had an unusual amount of rain and cloudy weather. I think for the months of May and June, just about every week had about one sunny day in it. This is after the past 5 years of drought all summer. I spent the winter planning how to address the drought and the heat so it was quite a surprise. I had planned this year to grow more drought tolerant heat lovers....lol. Really bad timing.

Once we started getting more sunny days, some things perked up. I had one bloom cycle on the roses and that was very late. In part because rabbits had eaten the lower foot of foliage on them. Normally I would still have a very good bloom cycle still going. I have a few Julia Child and that's it. The Hydrangea Little Lime flopped all over everything. I had more tomato plants than usual and happily we've been picking Sungold cherries nonstop, but unfortunately some of the larger tomato plants ended up with blight which I've never had before. So I've been ripping those out. Peppers got a very late start, they just sat there, without the heat or the sun. They are just starting to form fruit which is more than a month later than usual. I'm hoping I do get a harvest at least.

But all of a sudden now that we've had consistent sun, it is looking better. I had volunteer squash seeds grow across the front of my bed and I have about 8 butternut squash growing, that I never expected. And that's about it. I'll have a display of Mums and grasses as I usually do and then it will be time to get ready for next year.

The lawn looks great this year! And I have had full rain barrels all summer unused and no sprinkler use!

Hibiscus 'Berry Awesome'...a few weeks ago.

This is how sparse the Julia Child blooms were...and you can see the lower canes are bare....

The butternut squash plant weaving it's way around Sedums and grasses...

One of the squash....

The other end of the bed...

We have much more pink on 'Little Lime' than I've ever seen.

pm2 - your garden looks great too! We also have the same opinion re reds - I prefer 'cool' reds that lean a bit towards blues or else very clear reds. The hibiscus grow well from seeds IME - so I make sure we deadhead the seedpods before they drop seeds! The seedlings can be quite different in color and size of flowers and shape of the leaves, so don't expect them to match the mother plant! From seeds from a pale pink one of somewhat small size with a dark pink 'eye' I got both a very large dark pink flowered plant and a quite small pale pink one without any 'eye' at all. I like them both.... Last year none of mine produced viable seed capsules but this year they all look to have pretty good capsules - I assume the rain contributed to that...

Thanks Woody. I think orange is probably my least favorite color, and that must be the reason I want the reds to be red. [g] And I am a big fan of violets and burgundies, even in wallpaper and paint and fabric selection. I do struggle with wanting plants that are all kinds of colors and then not liking the juxtaposition of the different colors. I find developing a planned garden bed very challenging and I'm rarely satisfied. I don't want to give up plants like Butterfly Weed and that orange, and I really don't like to see orange anywhere near pink, so I'm always moving things. It's probably because I have such a small property and limited sun, that I can't have multiple beds to dedicate to one color or another. But - lol - I don't really care all that much. I enjoy growing just to grow. Any plant that is vigorous and healthy and performs, I'm in love with...lol. If the overall design is pleasing too, that's just icing on the cake and not an essential ingredient for my happiness in the garden. It's a good thing...lol.

My Hibiscus is one of the Proven Winners hybrids, so, yes, I have no idea what I would get from a seedling. Right now it is the only Hibiscus in the garden. I have a white with a pink eye that the color runs in the rain that I should have shovel pruned by now, but haven't gotten around to it. It is far away from the BAwesome and I don't even think there are blooms on it this year. All the other seedpods have dropped off, and this one is pretty plump so it could be a fun experiment.

Yes, all the rain has been very beneficial to everything this year except the blooming annuals and the heat loving veggies. My Pennisetum 'Hamelin' grasses have doubled in size and are producing a lot of inflorescence. I have a corner in the shade with native Gray Dogwood that is covered with berries this year. And that is in one of the shadiest corners of the yard. Has to have 3x more flowers/fruit than other years. And my Japanese Maple Tree suffered from a late cold spell and had a lot of empty branches this spring for the first time, so a summer of a lot of rain, has made a big difference in it's recovery. I wonder what we will get next year? [g]

For our locale it was an unusually dry May and into June but then lots of wet for July and much of August but there has been no precip for now over 2 weeks. My partner has no patience with me anymore as I squawk on and on about the weather.

Beautiful gardens here….lush is the right word! Prairiemoon, I am so jealous of your pink LL. My Limelight Hydrangea Tree usually has big white blooms that turn pink and then mauve, but because of the very, very hot dry weather, all blooms facing the sun are turning brown. So disappointing…..☹️

debra

Debra, you have my sympathy and I am sure mine are pink this year because of all the rain we've had. When I say we've had a lot of rain, I mean, I haven't touched the sprinkler in 2 months and I have full rain barrels for the whole summer that I'm not using.

This much rainfall is very unsual for us. I spent the winter focused on trying to address drought, because the past 5 years have been excrutiatingly dry and hot. Every year my oakleaf hydrangea has had brown flowers on it about 3 weeks after bloom and I end up just deadheading it. All I can say, is even after many summers of drought, we finally had a summer of a lot of rain, so I hope you have one soon!

I expect next year I'll be back to brown flowers.