If visitors are looking for flowers in the Botanical Garden, August is an ideal time to drop by. Starting in the Entrance Plaza, there are plenty of colourful plants, not least, the mounding stalks of Carolina border phlox (Phlox carolina ‘Bill Baker’) topped with its magenta pink blooms. Nearby, the glossy, red-edged leaves of the hardy creeping leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) provide the perfect foil for its crimson-budded, sky blue flowers. These are produced with increasing frequency toward the end of August. Like most New World sages, the blue anise sage (Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blue’) attracts hummingbirds to its spectacular two-lipped, nectar-filled blooms. This cultivar, which is native to the highlands of South America, has exceptionally dark, purple-black calyces from which the sizeable sapphire blue flowers emerge. In the same area of the Entrance Plaza is Yakushima crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia fauriei), which is known for both its glossy, unblemished leaves and spectacular exfoliating bark. Under ideal conditions (such as what we’ve been experiencing this summer), pyramidal masses of white crepe-paper-like flowers appear at the branch tips in August. Another white-flowered plant is the fuzzy-leaved Hydrangea aspera ‘Peter Chappell’. The surprisingly attractive lace-cap blooms of this cultivar are visible meandering through the foliage just off the boardwalk.
The North Gardens, accessed through the Moon Gate and tunnel, are also filled with amazing summer blooms. Flowers in the Food Garden serve an important if less obvious function, in that they are grown primarily to provide food and habitat for pollinators and beneficial insects. While the majority of climbers on the Arbour, and in the Botanical Garden generally, have finished flowering before the heat of August, the trumpet creepers (Campsis spp.) are just getting started. Campsis´tagliabuana ‘Madame Galen’ is arguably the showiest, and it perches attractively at the south end of the Arbour where it attracts regular visits by hummingbirds. A wide variety of summer-flowering herbaceous perennials are planted around the west side of the Garden Pavilion and in the newly renovated beds around the Contemporary Garden, but the greatest selection of summer bloomers is in the E. H. Lohbrunner Alpine Garden. Notable August flowers here include the fuchsias, California fuchsias (Epilobium canum selections), vervains (Verbena spp.), devil’s tobacco (Lobelia tupa) and torch lilies (Kniphofia spp.). It appears that 2014 will continue to be an exceptional year for flowers in the Botanical Garden, so don’t miss out!
To see photos of many of these plants, check out the UBCBG Forum thread August in the Garden – Aug 6, 2014
Submitted by Douglas Justice, Associate Director of Horticulture & Collections, July 31, 2014.