I must have imagined that I heard Douglas Justice say he doesn't do plants below the knee; I even adopted that line myself. But here we are in September, still up to our knees in flowers. There are lots of good photos of them too, in the blog at September 2019 in the Garden | UBC Botanical Garden. If you're reading this in September (2019), you can click through to Garden Explorer, select the September 2019 tour, and see even more good photos as you read though the blog. I thought I would just come, take a photo of the first two plants mentioned, post those with the link and leave it at that, but I got over-excited. The Salvia guaranitica have all been moved to the west side (water side) of the Reception Centre. They should be called the king of salvias, so big and stately and stunningly coloured. Fortunately, I didn't notice the anise scent at all. On my way to compare those with the Strobilanthes is another eye-catching salvia, S. forsskaolii. Here is Strobilanthes attenuata. Douglas writes: "With close inspection, you can see that the flowers are funnel-shaped and asymmetrically hooded, rather than tubular and two-lipped like all salvias. Both plants have square stems and are both hairy and glandular." These features are more obvious in the Garden Explorer photos. I always find this group interesting in that there seem to be two different varieties here, but there is only one listed in the database. This first group has leaves that seem a little more rugose and less fuzzy. Just around the corner is this group with smoother and fuzzier leaves.
Time out - here are a few plants not mentioned in the blog that caught my attention on the way to the North Garden. Keeping to the colour scheme, this should be Aconitum uchiyamai. Daniel Mosquin posted this in Botany Photo of the Day in 2005: Aconitum uchiyamai. I find the Kirengeshoma palmata particularly fun when the fruits are out and full size, yet there are still a few flowers around. I never paid any mind to the flowers on this Lilium henryi var. citrinum, but the bracts really caught my attention.
Back to flowers. In the North Garden, below the Arbour in the Contemporary Garden are several hydrangeas. Douglas mentions H. macrophylla 'Mariesii Perfecta'; what a good name. Well, that one is perfect, but this H. macrophylla 'Unique' is pretty good too. I didn't see the tag, but I think I have the right name. Speaking of the Arbour, last month I wrote that you needed to hurry to catch the end of bloom on the Campsis x tagliabuana 'Madame Galen'. That was wrong. It's still covered with flowers.
The winner for RED this month is Lobelia x speciosa, beckoning from the far side of the Contemporary Garden. Lobelia tupa might have been in the running for RED, but its flowers are so finished. You can get a hint of its last blush in the first photo. But that's not a bad thing. The fruits are pretty cool, as are the leaves in their reluctance to take off from the yellow stems. In my first posting in this thread, I wished I had removed a stray leaf. Here on the Lobelia tupa, I did think to remove a stray leaf, only it turned out to be a frog, right up close. Maybe it swore as it moved another leaf a little too far from me, and in the shade. I've never tried to identify a frog, but I think it's a treefrog, and based on the black line through the eye, maybe Pacific treefrog, Hyla regilla, see British Columbia - FrogWatch and http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/pacifictreefrog.pdf. As is not so unusual, descriptions don't exactly match on different websites. One said this is supposed to have webbed toes, and these don't look webbed to me. Or the other with the black line through the eye is Pacific Chorus Frog, Pseudacris regilla; those are only 3-5cm, have round toe pads (my photos aren't really up to that), and are supposed to be only in northeastern BC. I only really thought to wonder about him when I saw an article about Western chorus frogs in the Vancouver Sun. I thought I might have found one, but the name is deceptive, turns out that they're only supposed to be found in southern Ontario and southwestern Quebec. They're the subject of a legal battle between the federal government and a developer in Quebec. Here is the article.
I'll end at the circle plot at the entrance, with Coreopsis grandiflora 'Sunkiss', Cosmos and what is supposed to be Bistorta amplexicaulis 'Firetail', though it looks very pale for what I'm seeing on the internet. And a lovely pale Hesperantha coccinea on the entrance plaza (if I remember correctly). That one I know comes in a range of colours.
