Our feature for the month, shown in the header photo is Coleus (Solenostemon).  The colorful foliage and unusual shapes are the main reason most people add this plant to their gardens.  It likes moist rich soil, and can survive in shade or sun. The same variety may appear enhanced, or a particular color will become a stronger element of that same plant when in a different lighting situation.  It’s fun to experiment with cuttings from a plant and see the changes it makes when placed elsewhere in the garden.   In Michigan, we consider it an annual.  However, it is a perennial plant in native tropical Africa, Asia and Australia.  New cultivars with many varieties of colorful foliage have been recently introduced.  Propagation may be done by seed or cutting.  Cuttings seem to propagate fast if kept in moist soil and you can easily transplant them in a short time.  They also root well in water, even without rooting hormones.  It sometimes is susceptible to downy mildew, which appears on the foliage making it look dirty, twisted or curled.  Another disease, that you may find is impatiens necrotic spot virus which is spread by thrips.  Generally, it is an easy plant to grow and offers color without bloom.  It will produce a flower at the top of the leaves, which is usually small in size and purple in color.  The flower is no way as beautiful as the foliage.  Pinching it off will encourage added foliage.     Many a coleus has enriched my garden and I’ve included some of the photos in this slide show.  Please enjoy and  plan a spot now for this plant in your garden.   It’s definitely the workhorse in my garden. 

I did a bit of web searching on the very popular Clematis on my side yard.  I’ve included some photos for you.    This seemed to be the hit of the Garden Tour and many were interested in its name.  During my web search I’ve discovered Clematis heracleifolia.  There seems to be a few varieties so I suggest you search Images and choose the one you like best.  I’m still unsure of the variety of mine.  The bloom seems to match “Jouiniana” however the foliage doesn’t seem to match exactly.  This information however may give you a head start to find this prolific bloomer.

Here’s a post from Jennie Stanger.  This sounds like a great daytime place to visit.

Rakers is a large wholesale greenhouse operation near Litchfield, MI. It does a huge annual display garden that consumers can visit in August. You can see some photos at http://trialgardens.raker.com/  Several major seed suppliers like Syngenta and Jelitto pay the grower to trial their newest varieties and to plant a large, designed raised bed to show off their combinations, plus Rakers has some demonstrations of their own.  I got to go along with the Milan Garden Club for a scheduled tour last week and it was well worth the trip. Besides, we visited Hillsdale’s small college arboretum and a neat succulent place all in the same day.

The greenhouse tour reminded us of Four Star except they grow more plants from seeds. Some of the points we found interesting were the need for stripping media from the roots of cyclamen seedlings when transplanting, so that the forming tuber can be placed atop the next container where it gets exposed to light; the air-conditioned “editing” room where machines and people fix plug trays by plucking out empty cells and replacing them with plants from another tray; the FEDEX shipping containers shaped to fit into an airplane fuselage and carry boxed plants from Rakers around the world; and of course the lush irrigated plants on display.

In this bed at Rakers’ hot colors prevail. In the second photo a new Echinacea “Pow Wow Wild Berry” is a little overwhelmed by its neighbors and you can see the features that made it an All-America selection this year: compact stature with intense flower color on wide petals. It probably would be better in the front of the border and the designer may have been thinking of more normal-sized coneflowers.

I have a small collection of Echinacea commonly known as Coneflower.  Thought I’d share a few of the photo of those in bloom now.  They’re about the best flower for adding color to the garden during this heat wave.

The images include Hot Papaya, Coconut Lime, and the common Purple.  It’s best to cut off the blooms the first year you plant from the nursery.  I know, it’s a hard thing to do, however, the result of letting it build a great root system

will reward you next year.  Many people think they’re hard to grow for that very reason.  The plant puts so much of its energy in the bloom and not the root that they often don’t survive.  They are easy to grow. Coneflower is known to get black spots (botrytis) and powdery mildew at times.   If you find no petals on the bloom or the foliage is yellow then it’s probably aster yellows which has no known cure.  It’s spread through leafhoppers.  These  pests hop from plants when disturbed sucking  from the stems.

Every year a few new hybrid introductions are made.  I’ve been loving the “Orange” and Hot Reds that have been introduced the past few years.  Planted a few more this year, but cut off the blooms to let those roots grown.  Guess you’ll have to wait till next year for those.