A Trip to the Idea Garden

As beautiful as the lilies and hydrangeas are, I am getting overloaded with the sameness, so I thought I would check out what was in bloom at the local extension office idea garden yesterday. It was too hot to do anything else--it was 91 degrees (feels like 95) at 6:00 PM when I checked the local weather report. So I sipped my large dollar menu diet drink while I browsed the gardens. Yes, I photographed some hydrangeas and a lily or two but I found some other plants of interest. The foliage plants that are not in bloom are not always as dramatic, for example, the many heuchera, ajuga and ornamental grasses, but here is a sample of some specimens that I found to be photo-worthy. Most plants were labeled, but I missed a few.

First a daylily which made me hungry:

                                               

Hemerocallis 'Buttered Popcorn'

A hybrid lily:

 Longiflorum/Oriental, Lilium 'Triumphator'

Somebody must like the Stokes aster:

Stokesia laevis 'Klaus Jelitto'

A cool place to pause, in the heat, under the canopy of a foliage favorite:

Redbud 'Forest Pansy'

And an awesome maple:

Acer shirasawanum 'Autumn Moon'

A Japanese maple with that wonderful cascading habit:

Acer palmatum 'Crimson Queen'

Okay, just one hydrangea:

Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lady in Red'

I would love to drop a rock like this wherever I wanted it:

A few winning combos:

I hope you enjoyed these photographs in the comfort of your air-conditoned computer room. I was willing to take the heat, just for you.