Blue Mist spirea, blue mist shrub, whatever you call it is one happy asset to the late summer /fall garden. Trouble is, it can be really difficult to establish. I have tried caryopteris x clandonensis ‘Dark Knight’,  ‘First Choice’ and ‘Worcester Gold’ and caryopteris ‘Bluebeard’.

 The problems begin with the fact that although a shrub (or sub-shrub), here in Zone 5 ( 4 some winters) it will die back to the ground and hopefully reshoot from the roots.  But in a really cold or wet winter it will just die back, and forego the reshooting altogether. In one winter I lost several, and due to my plant labeling skills, who’s to say who it was that actually survived? I can rule out ‘Worcester Gold’, it leaves are yellowish, but after that it just becomes “caryopteris” .

 The problems continue if you forget that like many late bloomers it gets off to a slow start. Then you are apt to pull out the bunch of twigs you left that died, or replant in the  curious bare space that exists if you cut the stems in the fall. Sometimes gardening is nothing but a pain in the behind.

After the “Great Loss of ’08” I now a.) leave the stems and b.) place a 4 inch pile of mulch over the base of the remaining, unnamed plant. Success. The caryopteris is beautiful this summer.

One of my other favorite shrubs in the fall (ish) time is snowberry, or symphoricarpos albus. It has glaucus blue leaves and although covered in small pink flowers all summer, they are reallly really tiny so it is hard to notice. this time of year it fruits in plump white berries that are a good food source for game birds like pheasant and quail, of which we have none. Therefore the berries remain on the shrub for an extended period of time and look great if you cut the brancehs to use in flower arrangements. They are also said to have a sedative effect on small children, which is a good enough reason as any to keep the shrub around. Some nights they just won’t go to bed, just kidding my friends, I use benadryl for that.

snowberry bush

Everything I have ever read says snowberry likes to be planted in the shade. well, here, as you know there is none, and it is a wonderful arching berry filled bush. It will sucker and colonize as it gets older, giving you shoots to share with your friends whose kids are unruly and hyper . It has a gentle nature though, so will not agressively annex all the real estate in your garden.

snow-berries

Theer are a few more shrubs that provide lots of color and bloom for me in late summer/early fall, they are the hydrangea paniculatas , both ‘limelight and ‘grandiflora’, the Hibiscus or Rose of Sharon,and  all the Knockout Rose bushes.

 Usually the side garden is awash in color also from the clethras, both ‘Ruby Spice’ and ‘Alba’, but this year in a stellar feat of idiocy I trimmed off alll the blooms when tidying the bushes for the garden tour in July. I really miss the sweet smell they infused throughout  the entire side yard off the porch where I sit and read.

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'limelight'

knockout rose