Last month I was extolling the visual virtues of our perennial borders: a winsome lane of quiet charms, soft pastels, and unflagging longevity of bloom, rather like a true and steadfast if somewhat unassuming wife. This month, however, I have entirely thrown over that shy and serene companion of the long hot summer for the spectacularly showy if shorter-lived charms of our summer borders, which are just starting their truly riotous display.

This is no retiring, dim-hued beauty. Oh, no. This is a garden that not only sashays right up with a great swiveling of hips and says “Hi, Sailor” but gives you a quick pinch for emphasis. Think Carmen Miranda with her tallest of banana hats, parading her festive wares with not an iota of subterfuge or disinclination. Think scarlet and cadmium yellow, fluorescent orange and fuchsia, and purple foliage as rich as royal blood. This garden’s heyday is from mid to late summer and, right now, it is a fiesta of very gregarious, even outrageous color.

There are many stars to applaud here but, as we have learned over the years, blossom may be enchanting but foliage is forever, so I will start with the big anchors: the shrubs and trees. At the back of these borders, we’ve planted six tall weeping, fastigiate copper beeches (fagus purpureo-pendula), three on each side of the central path. The foliage is black purple and a marvelous backdrop for greens and yellows, and their twisty, weepy forms are magnificent against the horizon. We’ve also added, mid-slope, substantial, ribbon-y drifts of berberis thunbergii aurea and atropurpurea, the yellow and purple Japanese barberry, the purple echoing the deep burgundy of the beeches, the yellow providing a dramatic, white-hot counterpoint.

Additionally, in the center of each half of the borders, we’ve planted a huge aesculus parviflora (bottlebrush buckeye), a member of the horse chestnut family, each about 10 feet broad, which are currently extending their magnificent, vanilla-colored panicles skyward. On the right side, where the half of the border is broader and meets up with an adjoining slope, we’ve planted a couple of impressive stands of purple smokebush (cotinus coggygria purpureus). For those unfamiliar with this large-growing tree-shrub (to as much as 15 feet), it is a rare, visual treat. It’s foliage matches the deep hues of the red barberry and the copper beech, but it is it’s astonishing clouds of pink/gray blossom – literally clouds like puffs of smoke, as airy as baby’s breath -- that are it’s unique attraction.


Perennially, up under and around the weeping copper beech, we’ve planted big stands of plume poppy (macleaya cordata), growing to about 7 feet, with its lovely, glaucous, brassica-like blue foliage and magnificent plumes providing very nice contrast. Also at the top of the borders, large stands of helianthus petiolaris (prairie sunflower) and heliopsis helianthoides (sunflower heliopsis), two tall-growing varieties of perennial sunflower, providing lots of yellow sparkle to joust with the surrounding hues of burgundy and blue. As well, a grouping of yucca filamentosa (Adam’s needle) with their marvelous, succulent, lance-shaped foliage and towering stalks of bell-like white blossoms. All together, a very nice show for these tall cultivars.

Farther down the slope, about on a level with the barberries, are substantial stands of red hot poker (kniphofia uvaria), which I would certainly rate as the top bananas in this particular Carmen Miranda’s hat. Also in this mid-range, some rudbeckia Goldstrum and triloba (Brown-eyed Susan), both members of the coneflower family, and achillea filipendulina “Coronation Gold”, providing some surprising yellow accents themselves.

And finally, filling in at the bottom of the borders, just inside the edging of coreopsis “Zagreb”, are three varieties of day lily (hemerocallis “Rozavel”, “American Dream“, and “Frances Fay”) in shades of deep, yellow-throated crimson, clear lemon yellow, and salmon, and a bit stand of flaming red crocosmia. These are all brought into sharper focus by a few, interplanted stands of the yellow-eyed, pure white faces of shasta daisy (chrysanthemum superbum). This is another lesson we have learned overtime: always add a dash of white to any border for it invariably enlivens every color that surrounds it. Not that that the colors in this particular border need much enlivening… See you in August!