Nancy’s garden was written up by Marge Hols in the Saturday, August 18th issue of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. But you saw it here first (see her photos on our site)!

Go orange!

This is almost always the answer to “Where did you get that?” when people are looking at flowers in my front garden, which is mainly annuals and tropicals. I thought seriously about just making a yard sign or wearing a button: “90% of these plants are from the Friends School Plant Sale.”

The dark purple leaves are Perilla or red shiso, used in Asian cooking. The plants are now twice this size — next year I won’t plant them so close together!

The yellow and maroon daisy is Rudbeckia ‘Chocolate and Orange.’

The plant that somewhat resembles a Japanese maple tree is Hibiscus ‘Maple Sugar.’ Again, the four that I bought are about three times this size now which shouldn’t be a surprise since the catalog said they would be 48-60 inches tall, but as usual I thought “Surely not, in just one short Minnesota summer.” It has been completely healthy-looking and never even needs a yellowed leaf taken off. And it may still flower.

Here’s one of my favorite plants, Euphorbia cotinifolia ‘Burgundy Wine,’ an annual spurge which would grow into a tree if it lived in Florida. I buy more of these every year.

This is papyrus or umbrella palm (Cyperus involucratus): no one can pass by this plant without touching the soft, feathery leaves. I thought it would need to be in a pond or at least a damp place, but it has been absolutely fine all through this hot, dry summer. It is six feet tall — I love really tall plants that never need staking!

This photo of the Amaranthus ‘Hot Biscuits’ utterly fails in showing the size of the monster: about five feet tall and almost as wide. My husband thinks its leaves look a bit weedy (true, but they are very healthy and green!) and doesn’t fully appreciate the wonderful brown color, but I like it even better than I thought I would and will plant it next year.

Another brown plant, one of several different Sedges or Carex I bought, but not different enough that I can tell them apart. This one might be ‘Cappuccino’ or ‘Toffee Twist.’ Brown just looks so good with orange and burgundy. The green blades in the other pots are Crocosmia that haven’t flowered yet. A couple of these that I planted in the garden grew to full size and then turned inexplicably brown, but it’s kind of a nice brown, so I just left them where they are and pretend they are a broad-leaved Carex.

One of the things I love about all my annuals and tropicals is that they love the heat and look great in August (and until frost!) when other plants are in decline.