September Flowers: Some Plants Save Their Best for Summer's Last Gasp

Some garden plants save their best for last. The Blossoms at left grows on a very humble, stalky looking shrub that barely survives the competition and my attempt to prolong its useful life by moving it away from some of the more robust neighbors such as the Lilac, Wiegelia and Andromeda. Still, when those spring bloomers have settled down to a green but flowerless end of summer, this humble fellow puts out his delicate blue blossoms. I believe it is called the "Buccaneer" azalea. Maybe the other azaleas turn up their early blooming noses at its slow development.

        The plant in the second photo down is a flowering grass called Liriope. Again, it waits for its neighbors to do their thing, before sending out its blossoms well into August. They're still blooming now. 
         Annuals, especially plants whose true home lies considerably to the south, can be very rewarding in
September. We have pots of various sorts of Hibiscus, the 'annual' variety in this latitude. Plans with blooms very similar to these, if not exactly the same grow all year in subtropical climates such as Florida. The orange blossoms at the left dress up the house front.   

The plant below with rose-colored petals is the Mandevilia, or Mandeville Rose variety of the Hibiscus. This one is absurdly vigorous, sending is vines everywhere and producing new blossoms every few days all summer. It greets me with the lively outreach of color whenever I step outdoors to look at the backyard garden area. It's more productive this month than ever.
          The next photo down depicts one of the smaller Hibiscus plants, this one blossoms a standard wide blossom in bright red.      
            Back to the perennials. The Artemisia, which grows thick silver-gray foliage, and spreads everywhere, reaches its peak this month, when it flowers tiny, whitish buds at the ends of all its its branches and twigs. I call 'bud' because they are rounded and closed in appearance, but they never open, creating a two-toned effect on the silvery foliage. 
           Lots of anemones of the late-blooming species bloom this month. The dark pink flowering variety are blooming now. They follow a lighter pink flower that mostly had its run last month. A third variety, producing white, chalice-like flowers, pictured below the dark pink ones, are just beginning to open now. 
        I wait for these perennials every year, and they never let me down. Some of these plants are sold under the commercial name of "wind flower."
         Below the photo of the white anemone, another pink to light violet flower also opens this month. This is the Turtle-head (species name Chelone glabra). 
          The last of the perennial flowering plants pictured here are Asters, another reliable September bloomer.  
           The varieties pictured here are a hardy violet plant, growing up amid a thick patch of Siberian Iris, that peaked in early June. We have some more of these that have not blossomed yet.

Add caption

            The last photo on this page shows the tall red Aster, quickly growing so tall and leggy that I will have to stake it soon. Bees love these late-blooming flowers. One of them followed us into the house this evening after we went out to visit the plant, and promptly lost himself.
          What are the odds that I discover him someplace really inconvenient?