I want [insert name of plant here]. Want.

Last week DH was on vacation. He spent a lot of time mowing but we also went on a couple of days trips, one to the beach and one to Chapel Hill. Every time I go to Chapel Hill I see more plants I want.

I saw this lovely anemone growing in the Arboretum on campus. The flowers looked a little wan in the hot summer sun but look at those silvery lavender buds. Exquisite. Unfortunately something like this would be breakfast, lunch and dinner for the black blister beetles in my garden. They love anemones.

Passionflower grows wild down in the floodway fields and I really should
move some up to the house, as there is nothing like a passionflower bloom.

Green-Headed Coneflower also grows in our floodway fields, and should have a place in the garden. It looks its best lurking at the woods' edge where its beauty shines to best advantage, especially with companions Joe Pye Weed and Ironweed.

This tall stand of Green-Headed Coneflowers in the full sun border looked good too! Wouldn't they also look great with some tall feathery grasses like Panicum 'Cloud Nine' and Velvet Mallow (Hibiscus grandiflorus)?

We also visited the NC Botanical Garden, a treasure trove of plants to put on the want list.

Check out this Pine Lily! Isn't it beautiful? The option
of a bathtub/bog garden is looking better every second.

And look, cranberries! I didn't think it was even possible
to grow cranberries this far south but there they are.

Even though I don't yet have a bog garden I couldn't pass up getting some
"bog cheetos", as Orange Milkwort is affectionately known by the Garden staff.

A view of the bog beds, with Pawpaw tree in the background.

The Summer Phlox looked magnificent. I have Phlox but I don't
have this much of it, and not in this variety of colors.

I had some Ironweed but DH mowed it. But I can't complain too much, at least the garden paths got mowed. :) Anyway, it might still come back next year. But, I need more. I think there's some seedlings in the jungle on the front porch. I hope so, because that color purple in August is a beautiful thing.

American Spikenard was on my want list just from reading a description of it. Isn't the color of the fruit gorgeous?

Common-as-dirt Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' looking beautiful in dappled shade. I would love to have a full planting like this again, as the one down by the old house site is being encroached upon by summersweet and seedling sweetgums.

Few-Flowered Milkweed looks like Butterfly Weed in this picture, but trust me it doesn't. It's tall, tall, tall (to 6-7') and willowy.

Now this plant I think I already have. I used to think we had Highbush Blueberry here, but after seeing this I think we have this species instead. The fruits have that familiar dusty dark blue but darken to purple and then black as they fully ripen.

Besides the Bog Cheetos these other plants came home with me: a Culver's Root, the species Rudbeckia fulgida (which looks more like Rudbeckia triboba than 'Goldsturm'), and a beautiful Summer Phlox named 'Katherine' which is snow white suffused with lavender pink.

I haven't even covered the list of wants from our June visit yet. ;)

Early August Garden

Tonight when I let one of the cats out onto the back porch, I heard the lovely sound of gushing rain. However brief any shower is welcome. One more day of intense heat and then we are "cooling back down" to the lower and mid-90's.

With supplemental water some plants are just loving the heat.

Mexican Petunia

The polyantha 'Caldwell Pink'

Rugosa rubra

'Basye's Purple'

'Nasturana'

Seashore Mallow and Monarda 'Raspberry Wine'

Buddleia 'Petit Indigo' and a seedling Hibiscus

Spiderwort 'Zwanenburg Blue'

Now that the daylilies have finished their first
round Basil will take the stage in some of the beds.

Kiss-Me-Over-The-Garden-Gate is a sweet old-fashioned annual.

Texas Sunflower

When the temperature is still (relatively) cool in the morning sometimes our indoor cat Penny accompanies me in my garden rounds.

"...that grass looks good..."

She looks pretty good for seventeen doesn't she?

Into the fire

We got a couple days' reprieve and almost a half inch of rain before temperatures go roaring back up to nearly 100 degrees today. The term reprieve is relative though; on Sunday the clouds mercifully shielded us from the sun, but the humidity was so thick that after being outside 2 or 3 hours I looked like someone had dumped a bucket of water on my head.

On super hot days I've been running the sprinkler some in the evening, or the Brazilian blue sage, 4 o'clocks and bee balm will turn to toast. (Most of the sage and the 4 o'clocks are behind the rugosas and to the left of the Buddleia in the above pictures.) The idea is to eventually have the Baptisias and woody plants take over this bed and have all of the colorful summer thirsty plants closer to the house, where somehow placing a sprinkler in one place will water everything.

Monarda 'Raspberry Wine'

A motley blend of Baptisia, suckering rugosa 'Foxi Pavement', phlox 'Robert Poore', 4 o'clocks, Bidens, Muhlenbergia, and Spiderwort. A garden in flux.

Those woods in the background look cool don't they? :) Trust me they're not.

The neighbor's horses in the early morning steaminess.

Carolina Wild Petunia is a wildflower that I transplanted into the garden. I like how it seeds itself around and I love its soft purple color.

I am getting impatient with this extreme hot weather. I have a bunch of hibiscus and seashore mallow seedlings that need to go into the ground before the weather cools off for the season but it's too hot to be watering new things just now! If I can't get everything in the ground in time I'll just have to see how they overwinter on the porch.

If you're in this hotpot too you have my sympathy and try not to get too hot.