Skip to content
Elisabeth C. Miller Library

Keyword: Elaeagnus

seasonal flowers and greenery of September

My son and his sweetheart are planning a wedding in Seattle (my hometown) this coming September and would love to use seasonal flowers and greenery. I have not lived in the area for many years and am at a loss. Can you give us some suggestions please?

 

Here are some of the plants which are available in September:

Achillea (Yarrow)
Alstroemeria (Peruvian lily)
Aster
Callicarpa bodinieri (beautyberry)
Cotoneaster (for foliage)
Dahlia
Echinops
Elaeagnus (foliage)
Eryngium
Heather
Hebe (flowers and foliage)
Helichrysum (straw flower)
Lavender
Acer (Maple: foliage)
Quercus (Oak: foliage)
Skimmia
Limonium (Statice)
Viburnum tinus

Here is a link to the Washington Park Arboretum web page of seasonal
highlights.

A great book on flowers by season is A Year Full of Flowers: Fresh Ideas to Bring Flowers into Your Life Every Day by Jim McCann and Julie McCann Mulligan.

shrubs and low trees that will grow in the shade

Can you suggest some shade shrubs/low trees that could be used in the bottom quarter of a huge, years-old pile of yardwaste and branches that is now a 20 foot cliff? I have started with some Vinca minor in the lower part but could use some ideas of some things to plant that might get 15 feet tall, evergreen, and grow in woods/shade or sun through trees.

The closest list I could find to meet your needs is one of evergreen shrubs that will grow in shade:

Japanese aucuba – Aucuba japonica vars.

common boxwood – Buxus sempervirens

camellia – Camellia sp.

gilt edge silverberry – Elaeagnus x ebbingei ‘Gilt Edge’

Euonymus – Euonymus fortunei radicans

Japanese aralia – Fatsia japonica

drooping Leucothoe – Leucothoe fontanesiana

Oregon grape – Mahonia aquifolium

Burmese mahonia – Mahonia lomariifolia

longleaf mahonia – Mahonia nervosa

holly leaf osmanthus – Osmanthus heterophyllus vars.

English laurel – Prunus laurocerasus ‘Mount Vernon’

Japanese skimmia – Skimmia japonica

evergreen huckleberry – Vaccinium ovatum

nannyberry – Viburnum lentago

Source: The Pacific Northwest Gardener’s Book of Lists, by R. & J. McNeilan, 1997, p. 46-47