Mine are nine feet tall and have been blooming for several weeks, but I’m hearing reports that other Lion’s Ears (Leonotis nepetifolia) are not behaving as well under apparently identical conditions (full sun, well-watered, some fertilizer.) How are yours doing?

Here are a few photos of plants from the Plant Sale.

The vegetables in pots are mixed lettuce with bloodgrass (left) and Moskovich and Isis Candy Cherry tomatoes (right). I used the bloodgrass as an anchoring point; in the cool spring, colorful lettuce can be grown around it and harvested for eating. When the weather gets warmer and the lettuce starts to get unhappy and bitter (!) it can be replaced with annuals, or herbs (I used both). I think it’s a nice alternative to pansies.

Close up of the ripening Isis Candy Cherry tomatoes, with a green Moskovich visible on the left.

Japanese “Little Fingers” eggplant, also grown in a pot.

Bee Balm (Monarda ‘Raspberry Wine’)

Close up of Raspberry Wine. I really like it because the foliage has coloration like the bloom.

Rose glauca (Rosa rubrifolia) in hips.

Well, the Friends School Plant Sale website has taken most of the summer off (hey, we have gardens to take care of, too!), but now that it’s almost fall, you can expect to see a bit more activity here.

I’ve got a small pile of photos to post from some of our kind shoppers who’ve been sharing. If you’ve got photos of your Friends School plants (especially if you’ve never seen photos of them on our website) we’d love to have them! Send them to photos@friendsschoolplantsale.com.

The buying committee has started to meet. We’ve dealt with most of the shrub, tree and clematis ordering so far, and have reordered a bunch of the plants in other categories.

We know that when the sale opens, we’re going to have about 80% more plants for each of the vegetable varieties we had last year, hoping that means we won’t run out of everything by Friday night! Plus, we’re really trying to restock veggies in much larger quantity for Saturday. Our goal is to have some left for the half-price sale, really!

If you have suggestions for new or interesting plants we haven’t sold before, email us at info@friendsschoolplantsale.com.

Thanks!