Tonight!

I get to have dinner with Ruth Knopf in her little Island house surrounded by red china roses and purple asters and ocean breeze.

Not sure why but I’ve always loved being with people older than me. Ruth and I were the best travelers. Once I had to stop our rental car in Texas and throw out a bunch of roots of some plant that Greg Grant gave us — made the whole car smell like garlic for days. Then further on in Mexico, Ruth and I rode in the back of a truck with a few transexuals at the festival of wheat. We were soon covered, head to toe, in flour, (throwing flour on your friends seemed to be the point of the festival) but every time they jump out to party, to invite more people to the ‘parade’ we scouted for old roses at the little houses.

I know why I love older people. Because they are wise and giving and want us to enjoy and learn. Same thing I want for younger people in my life.

Letting Fall Perennials Go to Seed

My friend Ruth taught me big things about life and little things — like how purple is a transition color. It ties any other colors together.

Life is all messy and fun and this time of year, perennial borders should be too. Relax about cleaning them up. It’s not time yet. Let things go to seed. Little things are kind of mussed up too in the fall: enjoy the crazy Mardi-Gras colored perennial border like a drunk’s scarf all askew, all wrinkled and wild.

We’re surrounded by a world of stiff, stark, contrived domination—carpets of single color zinnias, masses of dwarf gomprena, pumpkins stacked just so on doorsteps, snap dragons made in nursery-factories; all exactly the same height and lined up by strings of purple elephant ears. All well and good, but let it go for a minute. Sit back and soak up this sun.

Watch, later today, on my web page for pictures of what’s flowering in the overflowing summer gardens of Charleston, South Carolina.

Fall Perennials

I’m going to enjoy this luscious late summer sun, then when the rains come soon, I’ll order Narcissus ‘Hillstar’, Camassia, Hyacinth, Tulipa ‘Greenland’ and my favorite those tiny, charming lady tulips which look so great coming up with Crinum ‘Sangria’ purple leaves next spring. And of course, I have my seed ready and waiting of toadflax and larkspur, red clover and poppies.

In the romantic borders now flowering: Erythrina x bidwilliii, Chrysanthemums of all kinds, Tagetes lemonii, Muhlenbergia capillaris, Chrysocoma (a woody goldenrod that I got from Florida years ago) Salvia ‘Blue Chiquita’ and mounds of the big, fun flowing Gomprena ‘Fireworks‘, which can be a perennial if, if you don’t clean it up and pull it out, in an effort to tidy up each fall!

The photo above is an old picture of Riverbanks Botanical Garden. Silver leaves and lavender asters tie all the other colors together.