Friday Fabulous Flower - nearly last, not the least

The growing season is winding down, but not over as yet.  So far if anything the growing season has been extended a week or so.  But both this FFF and next week's too never have flowered before October, unless conditions have some plant confused, e.g., a yellow azalea has flowered a bit here in September and of course some of our Corydalis has never actually stopped flowering.  Roses are also putting out a few new flowers and so is the Abeliophyllum.  Interestingly enough this late flowering plant is also one of the first plants to sprout in the spring, and so far it has never been frost damaged.  By now the clump of stems is 5-6 feet tall, and drooping if they haven't been staked.  The entire plant is quite toxic, so nothing eats it, (true for many buttercup family members) and helps account for it's common name of wolf bane.  The shape of the flower made by petalloid sepals provides another common name, monk's hood.  This is probably Aconitum napellus, the most commonly cultivated species .

So no herbvorous pests, no pruning, no transplanting (doesn't like being moved).  By October most gardeners have forgotten that they have this plant.  Ours grow well in light shade, and so are sort of in out-of-the-way corners of the gardens.  

Friday Fabulous Flower - last

OK lost track of the calendar but there must be a friday somewhere around.  It's also late in October, so except for tree color, and there is lots of it this year, the gardens are just about done for this year.  But not quite.  In the shady edges of our gardens at least one plant is in flower having started blooming just a week or two ago.  The funny thing is that this perennial is one of the first plants to sprout new shoots in the spring, and then it is the last thing to flower, monk's hood, Aconitum. TPP doesn't remember what species our gardens have, maybe A. noveboracense, as several cultivars exist.  This is a very toxic plant, so it gets left alone by the wildlife.  It's also called wolfbane, and several other colorful names that suggest toxicity.  The newest studies place this genus close to lark's spur, Delphinium and Consolida, in the buttercup family.  

Still looking good, here and there

Except for tree leaf color, which hasn't arrived at its peak just yet, the gardens begin to look pretty drab in the fall. Quite a bit of color still can be found lurking around our gardens here and there. In one shady nook best observed from our neighbor's dining room a couple of azure beauty berries are aglow with shiny purple berries on the gracefully arching branchs. This is a terrific low shrub for shady places, and since it flowers and fruits on new wood, it doesn't matter when the bunnies nibble it down. The beauty berry has several clumps of monk's hood/wolfbane growing up behind it, and it regularly produces clusters of blue-purple flowers on its 4-5 foot tall stems in October. Also a good plant for shade although the stems may need some support. The hydrangeas look great, still flowering like fools until they get frosted which could happen within a few days. A new varigated Diervillea sessifolia, dwarf bush honeysuckle, looks great in spite of the drought and is still flowering, much to the bees' delight, and it will also handle some shade. 

And one final plant flowers- monk's hood

TPP has blogged about monk's hood before (a Friday fabulous flower).  Yesterday was officially the first day of flowering - October 20th, and that's 6 days earlier than in 2012!  These are a great plant for the patient if you have a nice quiet shady spot.  Another new happening this year; something ate one of our plants and usually nothing touches them because they are really toxic. But this year bun-buns ate a lot of things they never touched before none of which made us very happy.  Tonight may be our first frost, but probably not for our garden.  It has to frost hard before our little heat island gets frost.  Nonetheless yesterday was spent doing some garden cleanup and pickup. Except for tomatoes this year's kitchen garden was pretty good.  Still have some mesclun, lettuce, and bok choi, but it takes a pretty hard freeze to damage these.  Fall color remains reluctant, but cool nights just began a week ago; drought will really reduce the sugar maple display this year. 

Friday Fabulous Flower - Better late than never

To put the final touch on what has been a tough year, here's a Friday Fabulous Flower, only one day late, which have been in short supply the past few weeks.  What's interesting with monk's hood or wolf bane (Aconitum) is that while it is almost always the last species to flower each season, this year it waited until October 26th to flower.  In fact sometimes you almost forget monk's hood is around as it hangs out in the rear of the semi-shady margins of our gardens.  It's a great looking plant in flower and a member of the buttercup family.  Now that the season is really over, we'll have to recap the garden flowering log and see how flowering went this year overall.