Weeds and seeds

This is the time of year when I begin to have somewhat lower expectations for the garden. There are only a few flowers left to anticipate—dahlias mainly, some others—and the late summer stalwarts are beginning to fade. The afternoons are warm though and the cicadas are just as loud. A cardinal family in the mock orange is creating a racket morning, noon, and night.

This is the time of year when I begin to look seriously at weeds, seedpods, and the vagaries of foliage. Although I’ve dismissed the notion that a hippeastrum leaf pushing through the split in a banana leaf is worthy of an entire post, these far-from-spectacular but still notable garden events are providing me with plenty of fascination.

I love the lantana seedpods: perfectly round, incredibly shiny clusters that age to dark purple. The canna seedheads are almost as interesting as the flowers, and of course you can’t beat a big fat rosehip. The rudbeckia triloba centers are growing bigger and blacker as the petals fade.

In the back there’s a jungle of weeds in a bed I deliberately ignored this year. I cut back the pokeweed, not realizing it was pokeweed and not some other, less interesting weed. It is resilient though and is putting out new growth, with some small berries beginning to form. Weeds are great. I have to grow more of them; they’re not nearly as fussy as all the fancy cultivars I struggle with all summer.