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Even with our rainy reputation, the downpours of early November were extreme. It brings its own kind of beauty, though, as evidenced by the raindrops caught in the remains of the plume poppies and beading up on the last of their leaves out my studio window.

Stepping outside, more sparkle is gathered by the Euphorbia wulfenii.

The grasses do their part as time marches on. This is the first year that this one has tasseled up.

Don’t know the botanical name for what I call Japanese Lantern. Maybe someone can set me straight. As the season wears on, the orange tissue wears away, leaving a delicate tracery of veins surrounding a bright red-orange fruit.

A few bloomers are still hanging on, and even putting out new buds…at least until a hard frost hits. Among them are dahlias, agastache, hellenium, lavender and lychnis (testimonial to the effectiveness of deadheading). Limping along is more like it, but the nasturtiums are still going strong in the bed where tomatoes gave up the ghost weeks ago.

And one last intrepid torch lily thinks it can beat the odds.

‘China Girl’ is proving her versatility by hanging on to her flaming raiment til the last.

I tried for red twig dogwood, but the deer keep them cropped close to the ground. Not so the ‘Excaliber’ Euphorbia, which leaves behind these glowing pink stems.

Another Euphorbia, ‘Tasmanian Tiger’, keeps its showy variegated foliage year-round, to stand in for missing blossoms.

Are you as surprised as I am to find November to be such a rich month in the garden? I wonder what we will find in December and January. Thanks again to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for inspiring us to focus, observe and share.

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day comes around on the fifteenth day of each month. Carol, over at May Dreams Gardens dreamed it up. If you visit her site, you will find links to gardeners all over the world, showing what is blooming in their gardens at the time. But first, please take a virtual trip through mine.

The leaves are bronzing up for the final show:

Would you believe that I picked up this Japanese maple at a yard sale for a mere $15?

The tree peony leaves are great bouquet fillers all year because of their beautiful shapes, but when they begin to color up like this, they can stand on their own in a vase or in the yard.

In the case of the Limelight hydrangea, it’s the blossoms that go from white to pinky-bronze as the days shorten.

Berries punctuate the landscape:

Gaultheria procumbens is sporting the red berries that follow the shy white bell-like flowers. Pop one in your mouth and recognize it as wintergreen.

My beauty berry is ‘Profusion’, a name it earns by producing lots and lots of pearlescent purple berries. If the wildlife deign to leave them alone, they will decorate the entry long after the leaves have fallen.

Quite a few perennials come on strong in late July and keep up the good work until the first frost.

Hellenium, or sneeze weed, is one.

Agastache is another.

And then there are the Dahlias. So often they are grouped together in a bed, where they come off as the floral equivalent of fruit salad (the canned kind, at that). I hope to develop the knack for using them as they did at Heronswood…as dramatic highlights in mixed borders.

A few divas arrive late to contribute to the garden’s swan song:

Next year, there must be more asters. This white one is from a friend, and has no further identification. The three foot high, shrubby plant has feathery foliage all summer, then erupts into a froth in early October.

Liriope edges a woodland bed, peeking out from overhanging hosta leaves.

Orostachys furusei, a ground cover in the dry berm, sends up fuzzy little spires.

Spiranthes odorata, still in its nursery pot, is a rare and endangered hardy white orchid native to North America. This is the sort of special plant to be found at the Hardy Plant Society fall or spring plant sale. The woodland will become an even more magical place if the ‘Nodding Ladies Tresses’, as these are called, agree to take hold and multiply.

I have long hankered for a visit to see the Bellevue Border, having seen and heard of it for many years. On the last weekend in October, we took a trip to Seattle to visit with family. Since a three year old was part of the gathering (actually, more the focus of the gathering) everyone took to the idea of a day spent wandering in wide open spaces.

Of course, the big draw for the border has to do with blooms. This late in the season, most blooming plants have passed their peak…on top of which, the border was undergoing a major overhaul. What I hadn’t known was that the border is only a small part of a botanical garden spreading over many acres. The trails are beautifully maintained, and weave through woodlands, meadows, a Japanese garden, a water-wise garden, a garden of natives, and maybe more (three-year-olds are, as you may know, somewhat distracting).

The woodlands were a study in green, with the occasional hydrangia sparkling in the sunlight filtering through the canopy.

I can just imagine what this dry streambed would be like with the primulas in bloom, but that is to take nothing away from its quiet charm here.

I wanted to include a human, to give an idea of the massive scale of the rocks in the Japanese garden.

Here they are again

I would still like to return in early spring or high summer, to see the much-touted border in full glory, but left the garden fully sated by beauty of a different order.

Some plants deserve special mention, so I am creating a new category where I can sing their praises. I love most plants, but am especially drawn to the oddballs, as you will discover if you choose to follow me down this path.

The sunny berm out near the fence line is looking fresh, even while summer fades into fall, thanks to plants like this. The Acanthus to its right still sports upright spikes of deep purple flowers allowed to dry in place, and the leaves are turning beautiful russet tones, as you can see. On the left, stachys continue to send up fresh flower spikes beloved by bees.

Above is a shot of the same plant while still in bud. Without the flowers to distract our attention, we can see the zig zag form of the stems that attracted me to Belamcanda flava in the first place, along with the almost woven look of the leaf arrangement (easier to see in the top photo). Tip to toe, it measures 24 inches. It multiplies nicely, much like iris. Mine came from Dancing Oaks Nursery.

As the days shorten and the light takes on that golden quality, making the end of the growing season equal parts poignant and glorious…the bloomers that strut their stuff late are especially appreciated. Here are a few from my Portland, Oregon garden:

Solidago‘Fireworks’ has been working up to this moment for weeks. It is at its most photogenic right now, but I treasure it earlier, when the blossoms are still in bud and close observation reveals strings of small yellow beads along the arching stems. It will become downright blowsy over the next two or three weeks, before it is time to cut it back for the winter.

Hepatacodium miconiodes is a small tree with shaggy, peeling bark and an arching habit. The flowers are just coming on, and will leave behind feathery “whatchamacallits” in rusty shades that rival any blossom for showiness.

Towering Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium maculatum set up housekeeping along the fence line with no encouragement. I could not have planned it better. Luckily, it increases every year.

The plume poppies, Macleaya cordata, look a lot like the smoke on a smoke tree. This is another passalong plant from Amy. I have moved it around to several locations since ‘99. This is the first site that has met with its approval…on the south side of the house with full sun, plus reflected heat from a concrete patio.

My favorite use of Rosa glauca was in a garden where it had been cut back hard in early spring. The resulting flush of foliage was dense and lush, with that bluish cast above and pinkish undersides. I can never bring myself to wield the loppers as necessary for that effect, because it would mean forfeiting these luscious hips after the fairly insignificant little pink blossoms have faded. The only pruning this shrub gets is done by the deer…not known for their artisty in such matters.

‘China Girl’ Kousa dogwood is lovely when flowering, but even better after the petals fall and the fruits redden. They are actually quite tasty, but I prefer to let them dry to use decoratively.

One of my favorite plants blooming right now is Belamcanda flava, but I am going to save it for a separate post in a day or two. Please come back to see it. If you have an interest in seeing what is blooming in gardens around the world, click on May Dreams Gardens in the blogroll at right. You will be glad you did.

…is not even a question. I love berms, and everything seems to grow bigger and better in a berm than in flat ground.

The moles are industrious little fellows. Whenever it rains, or wherever we water, this is a typical scene of their work. I might scoop up the light, fluffy soil as many as four or five times, only to have them push up another mound. I could grind my teeth and hurl expletives their way, but instead I praise my little crew for providing me with a steady supply of material.

Above is a shot of a berm in the early stages. I know, at this point it looks like a burial mound. Weeds, clippings, hunks of dirt from edging beds, etc. get dumped here until it reaches a height and shape that appeals to me, bearing in mind that it will settle over time and flatten to maybe half its height. It will then get a thick mulch of newspapers. I work with about ten layers at a time, watering thoroughly so they will lay down and stick together. There must be wide overlapping, or else grasses and weeds will find their way through the mulch. I extend the papers a couple of feet onto level ground, then border the mound with rocks. Cliffs line the roadway from our place into town. I hailed a highway patrolman one day to ask him if it was permissible to pick up fallen rocks along the verge. His bemused reply was that he didn’t see why not, as long as my car was parked well off the traffic lanes. I now stop frequently to load up the floor on the passenger side with the largest rocks I can find.

So that is a berm ready for planting, with just a couple of plants in place. The rock border does double duty: it holds the newspapers in place, and holds back the soil from migrating into the paths. Here’s where those molehills come in. Each time I get a wheelbarrow loaded up with mole dirt, I add a couple shovels full of corn gluten meal to counteract the weed seeds I know are lurking in there. The mixture is spread over the newspapers until nary a headline is visible. When a plant goes in, I just poke a hole and cut away enough to dig a proper hole. Eventually there will be little sedums and such creeping between and over the rocks. Cedar shavings cover the paper mulch outside the rock border to create a path and prevent surrounding grass from encroaching on the berm.

The above berm is further along, with plants beginning to fill in. I am experimenting with ground covers here, but even with quite a bit of bare ground, the weeding is much easier to manage than in the in-ground beds. The few weeds that do appear are usually shallow-rooted (catch them before they penetrate the paper mulch) and easy to pull out.

The first berm, on the east side of the house, is beginning to get a little crowded. It has been promised a round of dividing and pruning come spring. Restraint is a hard lesson, and that new, currently bare, berm is bound to fill up fast…especially with the HPSO fall plant sale coming up.

So there you have it: my formula for berm building. Best of all, all materials discussed here were absolutely free. More money for plants!

I love the way these zinnias pick up the colors in the banner and seem to shout a cheerful “Hello!” to anyone leaving the car park in back and approaching the house via the path to the right. These are Benary’s Giant Mix from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. I started them indoors in early March and set them out after the tulips in this bed had died back. Zinnias are satisfying to start from seed, because green shoots appear in a matter of days and progress is noticeable from then on. An ample application of slug bait protects the small plants when they first venture into the garden. After they reach about a foot in height, they seem able to fend for themselves. Next year, I plan to add some of the Profusion series, which are shorter, at the outer edges of the bed to help with the transition from flat to tall.

The tree on the left is Cupresseus macrocarpus ‘Citrodora’. At the back is Solidago rugosa ‘Fireworks’ just working up to its burst of glory. That’s the great thing about these zinnias: as long as I keep picking and/or deadheading, they will keep popping out fresh blossoms, partnering with whatever temperamental perennial comes along, until a hard frost stops them in their tracks.

I’m late, I’m late…for a very important date! If you haven’t a clue what that means, pop on over to May Dreams Gardens (use the link at right) to see what Carol has cooked up to put together gardeners from around the world. In the meantime, here is a peek at some of the beauties in bloom in my patch right now.

The first Japanese anemone ‘Honorine de Jobert’ popped just in time. I can’t get enough of her, and a good thing, too, because she is a prolific spreader.

The cardoon reaches for the sky.

‘Casa Blanca’ is the last of the lilies, after ‘Muscadet’ and then ‘Star Gazer’ have taken their turns perfuming the air.

Echinops banaticus ‘Blue Glow’ holds its steely balls high above spiky foliage in the east berm.

Fragraria ‘Lipstick’ is a groundcover strawberry I am trying out. So far, the deer have left it alone.

I know this only as gooseneck loosestrife. Anybody know the botanical name? Whatever…these witty little clumps of loosey goosey flower heads will always have a place in my shade garden, and in long-lasting bouquets.

The deer bit off every hosta blossom in the woodland at the bud stage. It is only this ‘Guacamole’, planted close to the house, that was allowed to progress to full flower.

This supermarket hydrangea holds its own with the named cultivars.

‘Limelight’ is a spectacular hydrangea…almost tall enough to qualify as a small tree.

‘Preziosa’ has varying shades of flowers on the same plant. I had some success with layering it, so I now have several at the woodland’s edge.

‘Percy’s Pride’ is my favorite of the Knifophias. It is crowded into the east berm with grasses, barberries and Echinops. Come spring, it will be divided and spread around. One of my favorite scenes from the movie The Queen was the long walk completely bordered by knifophia in full bloom. Another was the great pile of leeks in the royal kitchen…might there be a pattern here?

This lonely little balloon flower plant cries out for more of its kind.

Looking beyond the realm of our industry, Queen Anne’s Lace sprinkles the landscape with no encouragement from we diggers and connivers. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother…but not often.

The first project we undertook when we moved here four years ago was this line of lavender leading from the house to Richard’s studio.

My original intent was to have it on both sides of the walkway. After getting one side into the ground and mulched with gravel, other projects beckoned and side two never materialized. Now that it has reached maturity, I can see that it would have overpowered the walk, had I followed through with the earlier plan. Design by neglect rules often around here. The bed is three feet wide, and the lavender plants (Lavendula ‘Melissa’) are three feet apart. Puny and pathetic for the first couple of years, it now looks like this when in full bloom. After the bees have finished with it, I will prune each plant back to a neat little globe. The gravel mulch needs refreshing about every third year. I put down a thick layer of newspapers under the mulch last time, and am happy to report a sharp drop in weeding chores as a result.

We had the good fortune to be staying with friends in Carlton OR on one of the rare open garden days held by Windy Hill Farm Nursery in Yamhill OR. Kuon, the owner and chief plant nerd/propagator, was kind enough to show us around the display gardens with a running commentary on the highly unusual plants featured there.

Appetites thoroughly whetted, we were turned loose in the greenhouse. In the green pot on the right, potted up with Phormium ‘Margaret Jones’, is a Solanum that no one can pass by without comment. If you look carefully, you can just make out the long, bright orange thorns that protrude from both surfaces of the leaves. In the smaller green pot to the left is Cestrum parqui, or willow-leaved jasmine. It was tiny and in bloom in early June. It is now tripled in size and blooming again two months later. I guess the folks at Kew Gardens in England were accurate when they proclaimed this one of the top 200 plants of the last 200 years.

Some of the things we fell for in the display garden were unavailable, but Kuon put us on her wish list with a promise to call us whenever they could be successfully propagated. The promise came with a disclaimer: we might wait as long as three years for that call. It will be worth the wait. Every plant I brought home from Windy Hill is thriving and growing to beat the band.