Sedum Autumn Joy Turns Pink and Fraternal Twin Coleus

My Sedum Autumn Joy  has reached my favorite pink stage.

Did you notice the denim rag wreath I recently made hanging above the garage planter?

Can you also see the greenish coleus in the planter under the rag wreath?

hmmm... maybe not, so here's a close up:

It's a nice green color with red edges.


Can you believe that green/red-edged coleus is the same plant as this vibrant red one on the opposite side of the garage?

 

 This side gets a lot more sun than the other side which is just a few feet away.
 
I really like both colors. I wish I knew the name of this sawtooth-edged beauty, but when I bought it, there was no name tag.  Don't you just hate that?  I know I do!

Update:  Thanks to Eileen, who knew this was 'Henna' coleus.  I must remember this one for next year.  It is the most beautiful coleus I have ever planted.

A Few Deck Containers are Beginning to Bloom & Sedumn Autumn Joy is Looking Good

I have a lot less containers on the deck this year. I like having less.  My plan is to gradually work my way down to just six half whiskey barrels that stay out all winter.  I am no where near that minimalistic goal. It will take years.

I separated  two barrels of liatris last fall.  Some of them are just beginning to bloom.  These are perennial and stay in their half-whiskey-barrel containers out on the deck all year long.  It doesn't get much easier than that!

I never had much luck growing Liatris in the ground.  I was thrilled when I discovered they liked living in the whiskey barrels.

Many of my yellow calla lilies have huge blooms this year. It seems like they are  blooming later  (which, if true, is understandable due to the very cold spring & I brought them out two weeks later than usual).

In the front yard, I filled the border near the front porch with Sedum Autumn Joy last year and am thrilled that it is just about completely filled in so that you do not see individual plants--just a mass of Sedum.  That was my plan from the beginning . Once planted, Sedum Autumn Joy demands little attention--no watering, no fertilizer...nada....nada...nada!
I may have to divide it every three years, but that's  about it. It should look good all year long with no effort from me. I love the light green color with the darker green shrubs. 

This area will be completely pink in about three weeks.

 

I am not thrilled with the canna/calla combo under the window.

 

I like the foliage color combo, which I used to coordinate with the Ninebark 'Diablo' shrub, but the callas flopped over in the recent rain.  The Tropicana foliage should be much larger than it is.  If I do this next year, I will have to buy some green stakes for each calla. I suspect I will have to stake the Tropicanna lilies also --should they decide to bloom this year. At the moment it does not look like they will.  I hate staking because it is so ugly and it defeats my goal of less garden maintenance. I will probably be changing this planting next year.

 

The garage urns are still all foliage and I am really liking this one (the larger of the two identically-planted urns)

I will now start cutting back any further growth from the licorice plant and the ipomea. I don't want the whole urn to be covered.

 

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

 

Autumn Mojo--the Cold-Weather Spark has Ignited

I am really getting into the early fall weather we have been having. It has been in the 40's at night, which is perfect weather for sleeping under one of my quilts. Since I have no clothesline, I hung the quilt over a few chairs on the deck before putting it on my bed.  I like a fresh air smell the first time I pull one of these fall-weather warmers up to my chin. This blue Jacob's Ladder quilt is the perfect weight for late summer/early autumn snuggling.

In a few weeks, I will replace it with something warmer.

I have more energy in early fall, and last night I cooked a from-scratch meal--almost unheard of on a working weeknight in my kitchen.

I made a crustless chicken pot pie (chicken stew) in a white sauce. It was delish and I can't wait to eat it again tonight.  A buttery biscuit underneath would be perfect, but DH wanted rice, so I made rice instead. I have no recipe as I just threw things together.  I know, I hate when people don't give me a recipe! Sorry.

For the past month, I have been adding to my cold-weather working wardrobe.  This is my latest purchase--a red  wool flocked jacket.

I think I already own the black lace tee underneath--or something very similar.

 

One of this week's goals is to bring up a bin or two of my winter jackets and haul my lightweight summer jackets to the basement.

 

I have a few new bloomers to show you.  My Sedum Autumn Joy flanking the driveway is now at my favorite stage--this light  pink color.

 

 

 

 

 

I moved some difficult-to-place colchium bulbs to this front yard garden and they are now blooming through the ajuga and under the Sedum Autumn Joy:

 I think I have finally found a spot where I can appreciate their dainty blooms.  I can look outside my living room window and see this garden. 

 

I also like these 'Fireworks' grass seed heads in my garage urns..

 

 

Last, but certainly not least, I still have Patti's rain lilies blooming in September!

Patti, is that normal?

Sedum Autumn Joy 2011

Every year I  to do  a Sedum Autumn Joy post.

Mine is in it's pretty pink stage right now and I have lots of it.  Here are a few areas where I have it planted.

I like it with that dark dahlia foliage (the dahlia is in a moveable container).

You can probably tell that I am quite fond of Sedum. It is the most carefree plant I have. I do nothing with it and it looks good from the the moment the light green nubs break through the earth each spring.

This is my other butterfly bush at the opposite side of the deck. It has darker purple flowers and grew quite tall this year. 

This  bush used to be in another garden where it survived, but did not thrive.  I think this is year 3 in this side garden.

So it is always good to try new homes for plants that are struggling. Eventually you hit the right spot and they thrive like this guy did.

Blooming Tuesday

Don't ask how I got two of these images...I have no idea. I have been playing with the image for a long time to try to make it link back to Jean's blog. I could not get that to work, but somehow I did something to multiply the image!

Hey, wait...I think I did get them to link back....when I put my cursor over the image, it has Jean's address! Wooo hoooo! Now how did I do that???? Click one and see if it works for you.









I don't have a lot of nice images today because after a week of very cold nights nothing is looking very good in my garden.

The poor Elephant's Ears have seen better days.

This one is really bad.

This whiskey barrel is looking pretty decent. I have been waiting patiently for the orange phlox to bloom....finally it has burst forth....see it way in the back of the barrel..........no?

The reason you don't think you see it is because it's not orange at all! It's hot pink!!! To top it off, it has a bad case of mildew. I expected it to be a new mildew-resistant variety.
Nothing I bought this year turned out to be what I expected.

Even the Sedum Autumn Joy is not up to par. It's OK, but the heads are tiny this year.

It could be because it's a new planting. This is the area I dug out and replanted in 2008. Here it is before planting:

I am planning to cut down a lot of things this weekend. It's that time of year...if I work very hard in the fall, I won't have to do much next spring.

Look at all the 'Broccoli Flowers'!

My twin sisters-in-law came over last week and that is what one of them said as she got out of car and saw this driveway planting. She is not fond of Sedumn Autumn Joy. They remind her of broccoli.

I, on the other hand, love SAJ! I spent two summers removing all of the sedum 'coral carpet' (super invasive) from this area. I replanted it with SAJ because I love its light green color against the dark green yews and it requires almost no attention all summer.

It is one of the few perennials I know of that looks good all summer.

As people walk up to my front door, they are surrounded by SAJ.

I also have it on the opposite side of the driveway:


It is just beginning to turn pink. By next week, this entire area will be a sea of light pink!

You know what that means. When the sedumn AJ turns pink, autumn is not far behind. We had a high of 68 degrees today.

There is one negative to SAJ. When it turns pink, the bees love it. There will be dozens of bees in this area next week.

Last year I got stung by a bee on this SAJ in the arbor garden.
Every time I walked down the path, my knee would hit the plant. One day a bee got annoyed and stung me right in the knee--Ouch!

I am not looking forward to a repeat of that, so I moved the SAJ from this area last Sunday and replaced it with the Elijah Blue grass I bought in May.
I have never had this grass before, so I don't know if it will survive the winter. If not, I will have to come up with something else next year.

When the SAJ turns pink I will show you some of the other areas whereI have it planted. Oh, did I forget to mention that I have over a HUNDRED of these plants? Probably even two hundred...I should count them someday.

Oh, Dear, The White Phlox is Blooming

That means this flowering season is almost at it's end!

I have a lot of white phlox--just like I have a lot of everything that likes to bloom in my harsh conditions. After years of gardening, only the tough survive. When you have as much space to fill with flowers as I do, you go with those that flourish in the conditions you provide. Phlox seems to like it here, so I grow a lot of it. I like that my purple phlox just finishes as my white begins to flower. I would have shown more pics of the white phlox, but I walked outside to get some and as I brushed against the big Sedum Autumn Joy
a hornet flew up my Green Acres gown and stung me right in the knee! OUCH!! It hurt! It's been years since I have had a bee sting. That is the one downfall to Sedum Autumn Joy--the bees love it when it's in it's light pink stage. There are at least a dozen bees on each plant.


Other than a stroll or two through the gardens, I have not been outside much for the past week. Instead I have had the urge to change a few things in my living room. I've been wanting to do a flowers/plaids/stripes mix for some time now (like 18 years! It's about time I finally got it done).

Last spring I made a striped valance and last week I finally found fabric and made the lined plaid panels.

Did you notice that rooster that I bought at the Farmer's Market in early August?

I really find something pleasing about that candle-holder guy. He was sitting in the dining room and I grabbed him for a centerpiece. Over the weekend, I brought this table back up from the basement. It used to be a brass & glass table. I decided I no longer liked it and it's been in the basement for about a year. Saturday I took it outside and painted the brass black. Now I like it again.

Anyway, back to the curtains...........
After I had them all made, I did not think the valance and the panels worked together quite as nicely as I would have liked. I decided to use the same fabric from the panels to make Sparkle Jars-inspired rosettes to go around all of the buttons on the valance.

I had a couple of pieces left over and used them as sofa/loveseat backs. I think that worked to force a connection between everything. I now have these rosettes on five windows in my home. I just love them. Thanks again, Sparkle Jars!

Extolling the Virtues of Sedumn Autumn Joy

I worked outside Sunday for 7 straight hours. In addition to the potting bench project I showed you, I painted the shutters for the house while DH did the annual washing of the siding. Painting the shutters was my easy job for the day.

The task that took the most time and energy was replanting a garden in the front yard that I have been working on since last July.
This area had that awful creeping coral sedum in it. I started removing it over a year ago. It took repeated applications of weed killer and digging to get rid of that plant. At first I tried to save the creeping phlox, but the only way I could get the coral carpet out was to kill everything.All of the dead debris is gone and it's finally ready to redo.

I wanted to fill it in with Sedum Autumn Joy to match the area on the opposite side of the driveway that I replanted a few weeks ago. So I went to the rockwall garden and started digging up Sedum AJ. I think I moved about twenty plants to the front yard.

Now both sides of the driveway have the same planting. Nothing but shrubs and Sedum AJ which is so easy to care for. It rarely needs watering. (Acutally there are tulips in both areas for the spring. I think the SAJ will work nicely to cover the dying tulip foliage--I tell you it's just a wonderful plant!)The only thing that I have to do is cut it all down in the spring--which is a huge task for me because I have so much of it.

I love this plant in all stages of its growth--from the light green fleshy foliage, to the flowers which turn from light pink to dark burgundy in the fall.
I have more spots of it all along the front border.
There is also a bunch of it in the bench apple tree border directly across from this area, which you can see a bit of in the third picture from the top of this post.

I also have a TON of it in the roadside gardens. Here is a picture from early September last year.

In just a few weeks it will be pink from this area to about 200 feet down -- all across the front of my house. I think it's going to look nice. I hope so after all that work!

Abracadabra.............

Now you see the Sedum...

Now you don't

Early this morning while it was still cold enough that the bees were not covering the sedum, I took a shovel and lifted it out of both barrels.
It was overtaking everything in the barrels, the pink was a clash with the dark orange and I didn't like all the bees, so I found a new home for the two giant plants. I placed them in the Arbor Gardens flanking my newest path. (The path that won't be done until next year because I ran out of pavers.) They look much better with their own kind--pinks and purples. Here they are viewed from the second long garden across the grass walkway. I put a few of the 'Chopsticks' crocosmia in each barrel (I think they may look quite nice with the orange dahlias and some big Tropicanna Black next year).
Then I dropped one of my big lushly-blooming containers in the empty spot. The containers used to sit at the foot of the barrels.
Look you can't even tell I removed anything. I always plant extra containers because they are great to redo big containers if something dies out or, like me, you just want a change.

Unless you look very closely and then you can see the rim of the container.


Here's the second barrel, which looks very much like the first one.


Oh, I forgot to show you my side yard with -- guess what?--MORE SEDUM!

September is certainly Sedum month at my house!