Early Seeds and Late Blooms
The August garden - time to enjoy late color and collect seeds!
It may appear relaxed out there now that it’s late August, with even a few leaves letting go. But these days require hiking boots when you go into the meadow. There’s a garter snake on the sunny stone, easily seen, but watch for the copperhead in the shady weeds. Don’t go near that stone wall, since the wasps have built low to the ground this year. The horsefly stands on his padded feet there in the sun by the pond.
Summer flowers are fading. All energy goes into shedding seeds in August and September. Goldfinches peck at drying cone flowers and ride the cosmos stalks. It’s our time to collect seeds. False indigo, love-in-the-mist, sunflower, daisy, allium, moon flower, columbine, sweet peas.
We save and label seeds for next year.
Here is love in the mist as a blossom and as a fresh, decorative seedpod. It’s one of Sam’s favorite flowers. Stalks of the seedpods make fanciful bouquets.
But even in late August some things are in fresh bloom. One year we discovered turtleheads in flower on Mount Mitchell near the restaurant. You can buy native plants in the spring at the Asheville Farmers Market, around-town benefit sales, and at the UNCA Botanical Garden. Our own small patch of pink turtleheads is in front of Sam’s desk window.
A new native plant for us is the large rose mallow, below. We have a white variety of this hibiscus, too. They grow wild along Old Henderson Highway. Go past Pisgah Forest Post Office then look to your right after the recycling center.
More fresh blooms and berries in our garden:
Finally, two late-blooming plants, with a warning not to weed out the wrong one. On a UNCA Botanical Garden walk we learned to avoid one of the plants below, and to enjoy the other for its late summer color. Ragweed pollen is light and floats through the air you breathe, causing allergies. But goldenrod pollen is heavier and falls to the ground, so don’t weed it out.
So, late August is a time to focus on what remains of summer, and that means lots of falling, popping and flying seeds. Be sure to gather and dry them over the winter, because they contain the next spring!
You are quite the Botanist. What beautiful and interesting illustrations.
By the way...I was a "late bloomer. Hahaha