Curb Strip Plantings for August

 Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) in our front curb for August.

Summer is moving right along, but there are still perennial flowers bloom in our garden. The Hill Garden is full of coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), the Shade Path full of hosta flowers, and the curb plantings are in full bloom again this week. In the Front Woodland (the name of our large front curb strip), the Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) are beginning to flower. They had a July pruning to about half their height, so the plants are looking fuller, not floppy, and have many branching stems of flowers. They rebound for flowering surprisingly quickly.

The Front Woodland also contains a large Forsythia bush, which I leave in its natural, fountain shape. Wood spurge, Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae, has filled out quite a bit under these plantings, as well as our curb saver, Sedum 'Acre'.

Flowering in our other curb strip is Daucus carota, which is commonly called wild carrot in the UK and Queen Anne's lace in North America.

Queen Anne's lace, a biennial, is of the family Umbelliferae, now known as Apiaceae. There are more than 3,700 species in this family, most of which have the typical umbel-type flower. Poison hemlock is another plant in this family, and looks very like Queen Anne's lace (Daucus carota).

I am enjoying the wild look of this curb!

And I think that the white flowers look quite nice when viewed from the street against the dark green background of the ivy on the hillside.

Purple-leaved Ajuga covers the hill behind this Daucus carota.

You might enjoy reading/revisiting our curb plantings in June and July.

Hope you have a lovely weekend in your garden!