Japanese Anemones

 

Summer is nearly over here in New England, with cool nights and nippy mornings, most of the garden plants save for the late blooming Dahlia's, Tricyrtis species (the Toad Lilies) and Japanese Anemones,   are looking ratty. The garden tomatoes have all succumbed fully and completely to Phytophera infestans, otherwise known as Late Blight, and few annuals even exist anymore. But there is one exception, Jalapa mirabilis, or the common Four O'clock, an heirloom annual few people grow anymore. This is their season.

 Easily grown from seed, and great for children to plant in late may, Four O'clock's are rarely found at garden centers in the spring as young plants, for they prefer to be seeded where they are to grow, and divided later. If you're now thinking that this is one of those fussy annuals like Scabiosa or Bachelor Buttons, or even Bread Seed Poppies, where you are instructed by trusted plant experts to 'simply scratch the seed into prepared soil in the spring" and then wait for nothing but weeds, don't worry. This annual has large seeds, like black colored peas, and the seedlings are large and vigorous. Worth searching out if you want a border that looks like the one below in August and September.