Pink Delight Meadow Sage

This is the year of the Perennial. I have been hitting the clearance rack at Lowe’s buying up anything that says it is good to –30 below. The most I’ve paid is $2.00 and the lowest is 10 cents. Many of the plants are originally $12-$25 which is a huge savings. The plants are a little ratty, but if they come back next year it will be worth it. If they don’t, I haven’t really lost much and if I can hang on to my receipt I can actually get a refund.
I lost half of the Asters in one bed and need to fill in the gaps. I purchased six of the sage for this purpose. The tall shoots were once the pink flowers. Had they removed the spent flowers it would have bloomed again this summer, but I doubt it will at this point.

I cleaned up the plants and wondered if they were going to be too time intensive next summer. There were a lot of spent flowers.

The six are in the aster bed. Next Summer I will have to find another plant that will compliment the sage. I would like to see some of my beds become permanent perennial beds. Planting them all each summer has gotten to be too much work, but I have such a winter vole problem. Last year they lived off my one perennial bed and destroyed it. Covering these with straw is only going to encourage them to move in. We are going to have to be more diligent about trapping. This was the bed three weeks ago.

This is today. Cool temperatures, rainy weather and not much sun equals not much change. Except dryness! It has been a rainy summer, but without a lot of accumulation so the beds still have to be watered. It is also abnormally breezy this summer so that also dries the beds out.

The Powderpuff Aster that might bloom if we get any sunshine. The ten-day forecast is cloudy and windy with highs of 65*. Not a promising end to summer.

This image was taken from here to give you an idea of what these plants will hopefully look like next summer.