August 2009

Boy, talk about get started late with this month's pictures: it's August 31st!

Beauty is of course a rather subjective matter, and to me this is without question one of the most beautiful flowers you will find on a Hosta. This is on H. 'Ray Of Hope' and for the second year in a row it has blessed me with a glorious floral display over the first couple of weeks of August.

The plant itself is rather fascinating as well, it's a so-called streaker and as such somewhat unstable. I was pleased to see that a couple of the new shoots this year have come up as a stabilized edge-variegated form, which makes them technically a variety called 'Roller Coaster Ride'.

The month of August we will still see a couple of weeks with the last of our Oriental lilies in bloom, in this case it's 'Casablanca'.

New for us this spring is Echinecea purperea 'Double Decker', another one of our Costco acquisitions. One of them actually flowered and while it was not unexpected for it to not yet show the full bloom that led to it's name, we did see hints of it and that bodes well for next season.