Friday Fabulous Flower - Big and Blue

Here's one of the easiest and best looking of our late summer native plants, the big blue lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica.  No idea about why it bears this specific epithet, perhaps something based on the old doctrine of signatures?  Anyone else have an idea? 

Friday Fabulous Flower - Nodding onion

Here's a pretty much easy trouble-free native species to add to your perennial garden, the nodding onion, Allium cernuum.  The plant will form a clump of shoots, each producing a flowering head about 2 feet tall.  The cute thing is that the top of the flowering scape bends 180 degrees so the classic onion umbel nods.  Although all the plants TPP has seen have white to pale pink flowers, they can be much pinker.  The plant will seed in quite readily, so dead-heading is recommended unless you want seedlings everywhere.  You also have to position the plant sort of in the front because it can be easily hidden; obviously clumps can easily be divided as well.  It handles summer conditions quite well as it's native to dry open glades and prairies.