Every summer I have the privilege of visiting my family in Maine in August. I am always amazed at how many plants are similar in the late summer, while the truly stunning ones are usually specific to a certain location. Though the humidity levels of the climates are total different, perhaps the growing seasons are both relatively shorts, and the nights are cool in both Santa Fe and Maine.
Echanacea thrives here and adds purple to many August gardens, as does goldenrod and a variety of wild carrots that is know on the East Coast as Queen Anne’s Lace. Daylillies abound, even this late in the season.
While classic delphiniums are long gone, there is an old fashioned variety here that is tall with deep blue-purple flowers. The flowers remind me much more of a bleeding heart in texture. My mother thinks that it came up on its own but her neighbor remembers it from when she was a little girl, which makes me think that the seeds or plants may have laid dormant for decades, waiting for the right conditions to return. While I have never seen this in Santa Fe, I am determined to try it, to see if it shows its face more than once every thirty years back in our climate.