This is the month when all of our perennial plantings really start to strut their stuff. I am lucky enough to write in a converted space in one of our big, former dairy barns, overlooking the entrance to our perennial borders. The borders I refer to are two broad beds flanking a grass lane leading out to the visual destination of a fountain and pool, which are plopped down in a circular lawn which had been a cow pasture in a former life. The borders, anchored with substantial box and yews and flowering fruit trees, are planted in a soft, hazy, pastel palette of blues, pinks, and whites, accented with the occasional jolt of silver/gray foliage (artemesias powis castle, silver king, and silver queen... stachys byzantina (lamb’s ears)...) or purple-leaved plants (heuchera “palace purple”, for instance). Right now, they are singing the blues, though luckily without even a hint of heartbreak or hand-wringing. More of a clear, sky blue or the blue of a child’s eyes: pure and wondrous.



Some of the early stars in these borders are the tall, true blue spires of baptisia australis, the wild blue indigo, with its lovely blue-green, pea-like foliage, and big stands of mountain bluet (centaurea montana), the perennial form of bachelor’s button, with that wonderful thistle-y, deep blue flower. Another blue girl not to ignore is veronica incania (wooly speedwell) with its white, wooly stems and 6’ spikes of an enchanting porcelain blue. Also, the native columbines (aquilegia canadensis), members of the Buttercup family, with their dainty blue, white or purple spurred blossoms borne high on upright spikes, and the lavender-violet clouds and tall, airy foliage of thalictrum rochebrunianum (lavender mist), a native of Japan and a real star for the back of the border.



The front of the border is currently being brightened by cerastium tomentosum (snow-in-summer) with its gray foliage and pretty, spreading carpet of dianthus-like white blossoms, and several varieties of hearty geranium and cranesbill, with their attractive, deeply-cut leaf clumps and pink-to-white blossoms. All of this is punctuated with the occasional exclamation point of a grouping of giant white allium Mount Everest. Very nice indeed from my office window.