All about the purples

Purple foliage - Smoke Bush 'Royal Purple' (Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple') This guy has the coolest foam/smoke like blooms. It didn't flower this year since this is it's first full year in the ground. Sometimes plants will sacrifice flowers for a good root system which is fine by me. Rooting and flowering take the same nutrients and one may win out over the other. This plant was actually a refugee from Jim's yard (he's the guy who's yard is in the banner) because his yard is a bit too wet for Smoke bush to be happy. It has pushed a ton of new growth this summer with the rains of June and July. They get an awesome orange fall color and I can't wait to see that!!!

I finally got some clematis for the fence this season! I picked up Clematis 'Jackmanii' which is pictured above and Clematis 'H. F. Young'. The latter one is more blue than Jackmanii. I don't have any photos of it because it was a tiny little thing that was quickly overpowered by some astilbe in the area. It had one flower which suprised me and it's growing....slowly. Jackmanii was much bigger but also grew like gang busters! as you can see from the photo. It's probably one of the easier clematis to grow and easiest to prune. This guy you prune back to 14" tall in the late winter and leave a couple of buds on the old growth. It will be back in it's full glory before you know it.

I have to get back outside with my camera because I'm quickly running out of photos for the blog. I think the craptastic weather of July totally cramped my photo taking...not to mention now the garden looks like it should in late September after the unrelenting bad weather this summer.