Here is a combination I noticed this morning in a part shade section of our garden.

- a flowerless "Blushing Bride" hydrangea :( on the bottom left
- an in bloom "Fire and Ice" (or is it "Quickfire"?) hydrangea
- a bit of thalictrum "Splendide" (in front of F&I)
- at the very back (top left corner) you see one or two 'pompom' like blooms of a "Lucy" tree standard hardy hibiscus
- Anemone "Honorine Jobert" just starting
- a very long blooming "Polish Spirit" clematis on the chain link fence
- my favorite Persicaria "Golden Arrow" dominating the center

I await your August pictures.

Annette

There is one other thread with some combinations, but that wasn't the title.

I particularly like all of the different levels.

One from August 10, 2014.

(Is that a coreopsis...maybe "Early Sunrise" I see?)

Keep those August pictures coming.

This is the beginning of the fall-aspect, the Aster is A. pyrenaeus Lutetia, with a compact Pennisetum.

Those are all baby plants, so it will look much better next season. The roses are resistant cultivars, with single, light pink flowers.

I really like the Aster which I just started testing since last year.

In the long run the planting should require no watering and hardly any weeding.

The tall one in the back is Aster pringlei Pink Star. It was describes as very upright and non-flopping, but than we had an unusually rainy August.

Fingers crossed, bye, Lin

'Summer Wine' ninebark showing off 'First Sunrise' kniphofia and daylily'Frans Hals', with 'Paprika' rose just finishing blooming on the left, and 'Chicago Apache' red daylily on the right edge.

Most of the 'Frans Hals' are facing away in the picture so the orange on their petals isn't as obvious in the picture as it is in person. Also, there are more Paprika rose flowers still in bloom than can be seen in the picture. The rose flowers are almost a perfect match with the colors on the 'Frans Hals' and 'First Sunrise'. I was very surprised to see the 'First Sunrise' appear a few days ago! I first bought it at the RBG spring plant sale in 2010. It seemed to disappear, so I bought again at the sale in 2011. Disappeared again....! I gave up at that point and it never appeared at all in 2012 or 2013. My jaw dropped when I looked to see what that flash of orange was when I passed this area a few days ago and realized that it was the 'First Sunrise' resurrected!

Beautiful picture, Woody, with the woody perennial background.

From left to right:
Birch 'Trost's Dwarf'
Hydrangea ‘Limelight’
Echinacea 'White Swan'
Porcupine Grass

-green_go, I'm usually not drawn to white, but that is fantastic. Is that a 'Trost's Dwarf' Betula in the left corner?
CMK

It is 'Early Sunrise', Rouge.

Another corner of that bed, today.

Thanks!
Barb

it's so funny how ANYone can surprise you with astute observations about design. I owe my awareness/color mixing design sense, in large part to My Love. When we first began these gardens 30 years ago, we had pink and white peonies(120!) providing alot of the color. HE suggested that we needed to add some dark reds!! and since then, it has greatly improved out there!!

rouge,maet, greengo, i'm so impressed by your massings and varied textures, heights, etc. To say nothing of how healthy your plants are. I think youall obviously have some 'wicked green thumbs' !

on a very particular note, aren't persicaria/polygonums the best thing since sliced bread?! i love the genus and use it all over.

'Ruby Tuesday'.

Interesting comments, arbo_retum.

Personally, I garden for flower colour that changes throughout the growing season. Consequently my routine attention is to maintaining mixed perennial beds.

I do appreciate discussion of colour combinations within a perennial bed, but I really feel that, each year (and within the constraints of long-term maintenance) a lot of what happens depends on chance factors. To me the best thing about lots of flower colour is the eventuality of lots of colour combinations.

I also like (when it comes to colour) for the plants to "speak for themselves", so to say. I don't need to impose any selection on them, at least in that regard. As I've said, in terms of colour, the colour range of the predominant plants used seems to provide, to some extent, some periodic colour coordination (e.g. currently the colour range of the heleniums is taking over from the colour range of the garden phlox); again, the plants "speak for themselves".

ANYway...some ID's plse, greengo:
Is that a sumac Tiger eyes, or a SEM? I've not seen examples of using them in mixed borders and I grow both, so yours is an inspiration !
The variegated mounds edging the front of the bed in the last photo? If that is Monet weigela, I'm going to pout, bec I lost one- twice.

Re sumac 'Tiger Eyes': Some years back, I was asked to put some long mixed perennial beds in (for a customer) and have periodically been called there for maintenance on them ever since. One length of bed has rising woodland behind with a sumac at the edge.

Every year that sumac runs out from the woodland into the flowerbed, going in the direction of the lawn and its sprinklers.

I'd read on-line that given three years or so 'Tiger Eyes' is also a runner.

The garden in question has sandy soil. Has anyone experienced a running problem with 'Tiger Eyes'? It is not part of my personal style of perennial gardening, but it is extremely attractive for large gardens.

That is very pretty.

I planted a perennial form of Verbena bonarensis once (though not in our own garden). Got cold feet and pulled it out after I'd read about the annual ones seeding.

I have some questions:
When you whack Tiger eyes to control size, do you do it in the spring or any ol' time through the season? and does it cause there to be no flowers (like cotinus, catalpa, etc)? i read that there are both male and female sumac; does that mean that male sumacs don't put up those flower cones? (yes, you are right, i am completely botany-challenged.)

Isn't 'running' a good thing, if you want to pot up and spread the joy of the tiger eyes? that's how it is w/ bottlebrush buckeye: once a small plant has emerged from the runner's roots, cut the runner, and leave all as it was.Keep the baby watered. In a few months, pot up the baby, which will have fortified itself by then.

btw, i read that Tiger Eyes can be overwintered in a container in z 5. (Don't know details- how big a pot and if it can stay out in the weather.)

I finally got around to uploading some of mine, lol. This combo has just now faded (Aconitum done).

Phlox 'Nora Leigh' with A. 'Spark's Variety'. Ol' Sparky likes to lean (some might say flop), so I planted it close enough to the phlox and a rose so it could prop himself up on them.

CMK

For me the best of all garden phlox and the prettiest colour of all monkshoods.

And how about the dark-leafed lavender blooming phlox from the third photo on the same day.

Thanks!

Arbo- I trim sumac back in the spring and it doesn't bloom. The uncut ones are at least three years old and have yet to flower. I think a friend of mine's started blooming at maybe five years? Tiger eyes is a female clone and will make the nice rust red fruiting heads if you let it get large enough.

I will never understand why a few things will freely seed here, but others (that seed around for EVeryone, it seems) do not. The 'yes' ones include chocolate eupatorium, corydalis lutea, perilla, cryptotaenia, chasmanthium latifolium, carex grayii, malva,persicaria lance corporal, but that is about it! the 'No' ones are everything else. I grew verbena bonariensis (VB) one year as a front of the border- weaver, but it did not return. phooey. Actually VB holds my #1 spot for plants that i wish someone would breed: a cobalt blue VB!

green_go, could you please tell me the name of the upright junipers just above the calamintha, I love the look of those!

- "Solar Eclipse" heucherella
- "All Gold" Japanese Forest Grass.
- "Painter's Palette" Persicaria virginiana
- Corydalis Lutea
- an unknown fern
- vinca

I love that sort of scale.

You are kind green_go. I think it is 3 seasons old. It is in too much shade to grow to its potential but its good enough for me at this location. But about 30 feet away is the same variety, same age and it is so much larger. Here it is as of this past July. It has grown so vigorously. (And notice the one further down and it is scrawny...again too shady). (I probably have 4 of these "All Gold" and never lost one over the winter although they do take their time in showing life in the spring).

Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't!