It’s mid-August, when the south fence disappears under a tsunami of summer growth when viewed from the back porch. (We had the best kind of tsunami-warning experience recently after the record-making 8.8 earthquake near the Kamchatka Peninsula. We packed a few things like food for Billie, left the bags by the door, slept all night, and woke to calm seas and no tidal surge. I’m told that for the 2011 Japan earthquake, there were tsunami sirens and evacuation orders and subsequent damage reported.)
The fence-topping giants include Selinum wallichianum, which keeps beautiful leaves spring through fall. Angelica stricta ‘Ebony’ has grown shoulder to shoulder with the selinum but has mostly gone to seed by mid-August.
There was an unexpected day of rain last Friday, a really good soak. Plant people were thrilled, the general public irritated. Nothing was smashed down other than the Silver Spike Grass flattening temporarily, restoring when the wind picked up again to dry its plumes, which have left their silver phase behind.
When there was still some bare ground in late spring, I slipped in three Madia elegans, a native annual which had done so well a couple summers back but didn’t reseed. Then the summer tsunami began to build and they were submerged under growth and forgotten. Deploying some clever gymnastics, the madia managed to reach for the light and surprise me with blooms, a much appreciated effort!
Another heroic effort was made by the tiny Persicaria orientalis seedlings squeezed into bare ground in early spring. They too found their footing and shimmied up amongst the pressing growth and are about to bloom — the heart-shaped leaves in the center. Snails leave them alone once the leaves toughen as they mature.
More fence-toppers are sanguisorba and this one very prolific, long-stemmed dahlia ‘AC Rosebud.’ I cut back the bronze fennel by half in early summer. I’m slightly apprehensive regarding this fennel, which is a terrible weed in zone 10, but I had a suspicion its strong stems would support the other giants, and so it has. The acid yellow blooms add a vase-like composition to the scene, but there will be a vigilant lookout for rampant seediness next spring.
I don’t know of a current source for Anisodontea ‘Strybing Beauty’ now that Annie’s Annuals currently doesn’t offer mail order. I moved my remaining plant to the front garden last year, because it always seems to outgrow the back garden. It was beat up bad by winter winds, and only a small rooted piece could be salvaged in spring, which I dug up and babied before planting in the back garden. It blooms year-round in zone 10, so I’ll be taking some cuttings south in a few months.
I have to give up all my Los Angeles preconceptions about growing annuals like breadseed poppies, which are finished in LA by spring but behave much differently in this cooler summer climate. Here on the Oregon Coast, I let a flowering patch go to seed on the east side of the house, and in late June/July new seedlings germinated that are flowering now. And old plants gone to seed also throw up new flowering shoots. I’ve noticed honeywort, Cerinthe major, doing this too, with seedlings germinating mid-summer building into good solid plants for August.
More soon, AGO
I love this densely planted look. I wish I could do something similar, but it’s just too hot and too dry here. That’s why I get such enjoyment out of your posts.
Your summer garden is especially dramatic, Denise. I bet you could’ve done without the mountain climbing snail, though! There was even initially a fuss here about the tsunami, leading me to suggest to my husband that maybe we should watch the evening news (something we’ve been avoiding for our mental health) but within a couple of hours the predictions damped down to a foot of higher surf if anything.