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Over at Garden Rant, Michele lamented the lack of tall herbaceous perennials like Dahlias and oriental lilies in today’s gardens, saying here
that no one wants to stake, so that all we see are “well-behaved mounds of veronica, geranium, sedum and coreopsis”.
Near the 6-foot tall back fence, wire cages support those white hibiscus flowers that were celebrated in my first blog entry. Their flowers can reach 11 inches in diameter. The hibiscus is seen here with blue-flowering Salvia guaranitica, upright without help, and the 5’6” Annie, who is known to lean on anything handy.
More tall perennials include self-standing Salvia ‘Black and Blue’, Salvia elegans (the fragrant Pineapple Sage), tall yellow, night-blooming daylily ‘Citrina’ and Texas Star Hibiscus. Staked flowers include oriental lilies and two dahlias, while Philo’s tomato patch bristles with tall wooden stakes, filling the area between the long mixed border on the north fence and the center back hummingbird bed.
Hi Annie! How nice to 'see' you blogging! Welcome to Blogdom (or something)!
ReplyDeleteYou certainly have some tall plants in your garden. Salvia is on my wish list. The hibiscus I used to see growing all over in Australia sometimes had enormous flowers. I love it! I didn't think it would grow up here but Ross and I saw it up in Canada at the Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario. A long hedge of huge red blooms! Fantastic!
I just bought a dinner plate dahlia which has 3 lovely blooms at the moment. It's yet to be planted.
Thanks for coming over, Kerri! I should have put the botanical name for the hardy hibiscus in the first post - that huge white one is Hibiscus moscheutos 'Blue River II'. It dies down to the ground over winter, then zooms up to 5 feet over the summer. In Illinois that species of hibiscus can live through low temperatures of 15º below zero if it's well mulched.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the dahlia!
Annie