Showy in the shade
The shorter days and cooler nights of late summer make this hot-climate gardener giddy with anticipation of fall, which around here means a return to the garden, to enjoying the outdoors, to our best planting season. While I sympathize with my northern friends who sense their gardening season winding to a close, I feel no autumnal melancholy. Rather, it’s like a second spring is right around the corner.
The shade garden seems to sense that excitement too. Reds and jewel-like purples are blazing. The oxblood lilies (Rhodophiala bifida ), pictured above, are faithfully reemerging, having waited out the hottest and driest summer I can remember in Austin. Welcome back!
Native turk’s cap (Malvaviscus arboreus ) has flowered all summer, and it’s still happily producing oodles of hummingbird-attracting flowers.
In the stock-tank container pond, dwarf papyrus (Cyperus haspen viviparous ) grows alongside horsetail (Equisetum hyemale ), not minding the encroaching shade of the nearby cedar elm. The water lily minds, however, and has bloomed less and less over the years. By the way, both dwarf papyrus and horsetail are aggressive when they have plenty of moisture. If a stem leans over and touches the water, a new plantlet will grow roots on the end of the stem. I keep both pond plants in pots without holes, but I must still trim leaning stems frequently.
American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana ), another native. This large beauty of a bush is well behaved, so long as it has plenty of room to arch and show off those long branches clustered with shiny purple berries.
The appearance of these berries, encircling each skinny, arm-like branch like beaded bracelets, cheers me up. They promise that fall is coming.
All material © 2006-2008 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
I am a good month or more away from those purple berries. Yours look painted like the bench. I am still trying to accept the move from this beautiful garden but it will be fun to see the new one unfold. Much like watching Christopher’s move from Hawaii to ‘Outside Clyde’.
I know, Layanee. I identify with my garden pretty strongly myself. But I’m ready to let it go and try something new. I hope that my new garden’s beginning will be even half as interesting as Christopher’s has been. I only wish that you could have seen this garden at Spring Fling. Drat that airline snafu! —Pam
I’m waiting for my beautyberries to “berry” (C. chinensis). Shouldn’t be too much longer! And, yes, fall isn’t exactly a beginning “up north” here but it is a good time to plant trees and shrubs.
I hope you are taking all your stock tank planters with you!
North or south, then, we’ll all be digging in the fall. As for the stock tank planters, alas, they are too heavy to move, plus I consider them part of the garden. They are staying behind. —Pam
I love turk’s cap. I don’t have any, but I see them in full bloom in neighbor’s yards. And your beautyberries are stunning! They are such show stoppers. I love to see them in a garden.
The first time I saw a beautyberry bush, I just had to have one. Imagine my delight, not long afterward, when I spotted them growing wild along the trails by Barton Creek. —Pam
Wonderful plants. The beauty berry looks gorgeous. What do you do to keep your beauty berry looking great and so full? I have a client who I just bought some turks cap for and they have a beauty berry but it’s looking down.
Perhaps their beautyberry has taken a beating during the long, dry summer? I find that it likes morning sun but not afternoon sun, and occasional extra moisture, just like it would get growing along a creek. I planted this one next to my downspout, and it loves that location. —Pam
Our beauty berry is just now turning. I just love to watch the Robins and Cedar Waxwings eating those
berries. They can be quite acrobatic when trying to get the berries on the ends of those flimsy limbs.
I love the turks cap. It is one of my favorites of the TX wildflowers. Yours looks so good too. I
guess because it gets some tlc in your garden.
We don’t have robins at this time of year, or cedar waxwings either, so far as I know. But you’d see plenty of mockingbirds and sparrows on my beautyberry, and they do often get a good bounce on those arching branches. —Pam
I am with you on fall, it is our second spring also. We usually do not get a good freeze until late Nov. or Dec. American Beautyberry is my favorite, it looks like purple candy.
Our first freeze is usually around Thanksgiving too, Les. In fact, in my north-central Austin garden, I usually only get about 3 or 4 hard freezes a year, if that many. The new garden will be colder, I expect. You’re right—the beautyberries DO look like purple candy. —Pam
Those berries look so pretty next to the blue chair. I really like these. I love your stocktank too. It has me running down to the farm supply store to see if I can find one. They are expensive! But they should last a long time so worth it, I think. I just have to have one. Thank goodness we have an anniversary coming up. I’ll just drop a hint. He won’t be surprised. Former presents were a culvert, a load of manure, and wood to build trellises. He no longer finds it odd that I had rather have that than lace whatevers. LOL
Hear, hear—steel, wood, and manure trump lacy naughty bits any day. 🙂 I think, for the size, that stock tanks are priced affordably. A huge ceramic pot, for example, could cost hundreds more. But it’s true that nothing we want for the garden is as inexpensive as we’d like it to be. Alas.
Thanks for the compliment on the beautyberry bench. I painted it purple last year to complement the berries. —Pam
That’s a great Beautyberry – how big is it and do you prune it? I planted one last year and it JUST now popped out again. It’s in too much shade now that a tree grew some more over it. I suppose it will make it onto the “move it” list!
It’s about 6 feet tall and wide, Diana. If you give it the proper spacing, it shouldn’t need any pruning at all. However, since I squeezed mine in alongside the driveway, I occasionally have to prune back some of the long canes. But I hate to do it because it messes up the naturally graceful shape of the bush. They like shade, so I wonder if your beautyberry just got too thirsty, having to compete with tree roots? Along Barton Creek, they grow wild near the creek bottom. —Pam
All Equisetums are declared noxious weeds here — if they grow as readily as you indicate, I’m not surprised! They are poisonous to grazing animals, too. Still swooning over your stock tanks…
That’s interesting about the invasiveness of equisetum in Australia, Chookie. It’s a native plant across much, if not all, of the U.S., so it must strike a balance within the native ecosystem somehow. —Pam
The Beautyberry is a star in your garden, Pam! Did it need extra water this summer? Mine has looked poorly with the drought we have had. Those stock tanks are fabulous! Have you started digging your take along plants, yet?
Everything needed extra water this summer, Gail. But the beautyberry didn’t need more than the others, and less than many. No, I haven’t dug my take-alongs yet. I’m trying to wait until the last minute, and cooler weather. —Pam
I love horsetail and there’s an area near here where it grows rampant. I really must go get some for our little pond next year. Or get some this year and plop it in the ground to overwinter, then put it in the pond next spring.
LOVE Beautyberry and have yet to get some of my own. I really need to remedy that! Yours is gorgeous!
It’s a neat pond plant, and dragonflies love it. Just be sure to keep it contained in a plastic pot with no holes, Kylee. Otherwise you may end up with a whole pond of horsetail. —Pam
What lovely colours – we are just entering our autumn, not that we have had a summer this year really as it has rained so much. We are hoping for a dryish autumn so we can get into the garden to tidy up.
We had one of those rainy summers last year. I hope you have a nice dry autumn, PG. —Pam
Hi Pam, I was here last night reading but was too tired to leave a comment. I wanted to say the beautyberries in The Woodlands were growing wild along the pathways and looked fantastic with the wild ageratum that grew all around them. You know the plant I mean, they have changed the taxonomy several times, it is probably an ageratina something now. The red-purple of the berry with the blue purple of the flower were a gorgeous combination and showing their colors at the same time of year. Some wild ferns were mixed in there, it was lovely. I remember when you painted the bench to match, such a clever girl.
I love that combination too, Frances. In fact, I recently added another beautyberry to my ageratum patch in the back garden, though it’s too small to give much of a show this fall. I’ll miss it next fall, but perhaps I’ll replicate that mix in my new garden. I’ll certainly have plenty of shade there. —Pam
Great minds think alike, don’t they? I also was considering a Second Spring yesterday and this morning. All looks beautiful and serene Pam. The Beautyberry is so pretty with the purple chairs. Mine are just forming green berries. In a few weeks, mine will turn purple too. I bought one which is supposed to be variegated, but all but one branch have turned the regular green. Ah, well, such is life.~~Dee
Interesting that the berries here have turned but farther north they haven’t. I guess that’s because they’re different varieties. I’m sorry about the non-variegation. It’s annoying when you don’t get what you thought you were buying. —Pam
Hi Pam!
What a “sparkle” flowers you show this time, real nice.
Im jealous that you have so much summer left.
The garden time is to short, here in Sweden between May and the end of August.
Well well…you can have a nice time inside to, read a gardenbook, light a candel and have a good cup of coffe…right?
Best regards Ken
That’s right, Ken. In fact, that’s what I’ve been doing all summer—sitting inside with the air-conditioning, reading garden books, sipping Diet Dr. Peppers, and waiting for fall. 😉 —Pam
Pam, If that´s true…I’d rather live in Sweden whith my short summer.
Ken
I often say that myself in the summer, Ken. But I sure don’t say it during our gloriously warm and sunny fall, winter, and spring. There are trade-offs no matter where one lives, right? —Pam