Hosta ‘Royal Standard’ is the star of the garden this time of year. I love its clean lavender-tinged white and green and the way it splays itself out like a fireworks off the corner of the front porch. ‘Royal Standard’ is sizeable enough to make a statement and takes a good bit of sun without burning.
Various bees and night moths visit it, so it gives some sustenance, though it does not nurture native caterpillars as the nativists would prefer. I let the flower stalks go to seed as the leaves yellow later in the fall. Of course the deer love it and I go to the trouble of preserving this specimen with Imustgarden’s deer repellent, an organic with kelp that works well. It seems to last a long time and I replenish it after rains. Worth the trouble for this icon of late summer.
Hosta ‘Royal Standard’
Started seeds of the Money Plant, Lunaria annua. Refrigerated for 2 weeks then took another few weeks to germinate, but I have a nice flatful of little seedlings that I hope to put out this fall. Lunaria is a biennial that reseeds where it’s happy somewhere in the shade. Its spikes of blossoms – white or pale purple – are fragrant and turn into opalescent seed pods that can be dried for arrangements. Always nice to be nurturing something along.
Lunaria seeds
The autumn equinox comes in late September but the Earth has tilted and as the great poet Iris Murdoch said, the days “are weary of summer.” The first sign of the changing of the seasons here in the hollow is the falling of the golden walnut leaves. They waft through the air in the afternoons like coins tossed out by the gods.
