Persian Cornflower, and More

persian cornflower perennial

These Persian Cornflowers are beautiful purpley blue perennials,which look much like blue Bachelor Buttons only bigger. They sometimes die right back to the ground in mid summer, so it is best to plant a lot of other things around them. 

Jacob's ladder

I really like the foliage, the lacy leaves of Jacob's Ladder. Jacob's ladder gets its name from the variegated leaves with white that resembles rungs on a ladder. The tall stems with little clumps of bluey purple bell shaped flowers at the top are quite pretty. Jacob's Ladder continues to bloom for quite a while, usually until end of July, especially if you cut off the spent flowers.  I doesn't like to dry out and actually prefers a location with not too much hot sun, much like the Monkshood.

Cactus dahlia and monkshood starting to bloom

The smallest clump of my 3 monkshood is blooming first! Monkshood are highly toxic, but only if the plants or seeds are eaten.  Monkshood plant also known by aconitum, turk's cap, friar's cap and wolf's bane.  It likes sunlight but will grow in shade as well. I used to have 2 big clumps of Monkshood on the north side of my house in northern Manitoba and they grew fine there. They bloomed about 2 weeks later than the one growing at the east side of the house.  

I love this gorgeous red cactus dahlia. It is blooming early this year! I have been growing this particular dahlia from tubers for 7 years now! Each fall I dig the tubers up and store them in a bag of peat moss in the laundry room until they start to sprout like potatoes in March. Then I plant them in a pot where they grow until it's warm enough to plant them out in the flower beds.  I have another identical twin to this plant in another bed but it took a bit of frost in late  May and has only tiny buds so far.  The third Dahlia is a fire colored cactus flower, (orange and yellow), quite dramatic when it blooms ( but no sign of that so far...)

 Rudbeckia

I love the look of this Rudbeckia also called black-eyed Susan. It's called Tiger Eye. I  bought it at a green house and planted it last week. I know that's like cheating, but you need some color in your garden at the start. Not sure if it's a perennial or not, but I'm going to enjoy it for this summer anyway. :)

Another bonus is that the deer don't like them and I hope that pesky, hungry little marmot doesn't either!

(More on him coming up!)