My late blooming daylilies are just starting now. Yarrow is still blooming pink and white and red. I have always found the most reliable fall bloomer to be good old snapdragons, which I happen to love BTW. It's mostly a sentimental memory thing but they are incredibly colorful! Last year they bloomed into November for me. They also reseed quite readily for me. :)

I still have some lilies and some daylilies blooming. My lythrum is still going strong. I have yarrow as well. The heliopsis is still very nice too. What about phlox? The white one i have is still blooming and a pink one is just starting. And hollyhocks - mine are still going nuts! I'm going to post pictures of a couple of yellow ones, Gil, and if either is like the one you had, i'll send you some seeds.

Oh, another thing - rudbeckia. That's always nice a bright in August. And coneflowers. Gee, i could go on! LOL

Good old fashioned marigolds. Ya, I know, boring, but they certainly have their place.

About half of my garden is blooming right now. The trick is to have a really bad spring and plant later than you ever have before, LOL!

Seriously though, I always have blooms all of August. The Magellan Zinnias are really going gangbusters, Early Sunrise Coreopsis is blooming beautifully, dianthus that I sheared has just bloomed again, I don't know if they're late but my bachelor buttons are blooming nicely right now, Sensation Salvia still looks good, my lemon thyme is reasonably pretty, Verbena looks beautiful of course, Baby Face Phlox is going to bloom soon, Johnny Jump Ups that I snipped off are blooming again, Joe Pyeweed is still blooming, and let's not forget Impatiens blooming their little faces off right now. My pole beans have bright orange blooms on them right now, too. I think they're late =:(

I realize a lot of these are annuals, but not all of them, and it really doesn't take many of them to pop your flower beds =:)

There's a few more but I can't think of them right now =:)

I also have snapdragons mixed into the shrub/perennial beds this year, as well as Rudbeckia and Heliopsis and they are providing the colour right now. My Liatris is also just starting to bloom. I also planted the little sunflowers, Pacino Cola and although they've been all but decimated by some bird followed by some bug, they are still providing nice colour.

I have to add a photo here, though, of Yarrow (Achillea filipendula) Coronation Gold. I am just so impressed with this plant that I started from seed about 3 years ago. It blooms for a very long time and each individual bloom takes a really long time before it fades.

Can I show another photo - this is my mom's 30' "hedge" of Monkshood. She has peonies planted inbetween each clump which show off earlier, but the Monkshood always looks amazing.

aah! So many good ideas. Lots that were listed are already done for me though, we've had such a hot dry summer it all blew fast. Even my asters and liatris are almost done. Pudge I love love love that monkshood. I need me some. I have the autumn blooming species and in hot years it has chance to bloom in about Sept-Oct. Cold years it's budding out when the snow hits. Last year at this time my c... duh the word escapes me... nope still can't remember it... was a 6' forest and just starting to bloom. The re-seeders of it are only 2' high and not doing much this year. Odd.

Two others that I've been wanting to get are perennial phlox (my annual twinkle mix is looking fabulous right now) and obviously hollyhocks which don't like me.

Sorry, I just want to hijack your post for a tiny little moment.....

Pudge, your yarrow look wonderful. I've recently seen the red and also liked it. Why oh why did I get stuck with volunteer white yarrow all over the place? I've never planted it and I don't like it. Do you suppose I should fight fire with fire and plant yellow and red around the white?

Gillian - another annual - if you like pink - if you buy the seed strip of lavatera, you'll have a massive section of amazing blooms you can see from a mile away, for most of the summer and well into the fall if you keep them watered in the heat =:) If you let them go to seed in the fall you'll get a few popping up the next spring. Lynn

Gillian ~ If memory serves me correctly, Pat at Fundies Beauties has all his perennials on sale at this time . Seems he has a few different monkshod in there.
Here's the link http://hostageek.ca/

Funny - I was just thinking that my garden was lacking bright colours so far this month also...

Other than what's already been mentioned above, I'd add perennial geraniums/cranesbills to the list. Some of my varieties have already finished blooming but my 'Rozanne' is going strong. Also love love love my scabiosa!!

I don't mind being the weird one in the group! I grow mostly vegetables. My pole beans and potatoes are putting on a good show! They're putting my tomatoes & peppers to shame.

On the flower side of things, my Rudbeckia is still blooming, Love Lies Bleeding (which I didn't plant! I did plant it several years ago. It decided it liked me and has come up ever since.) is looking good and my Datura has some lovely blooms too.

Sunflowers! After being attacked by raccoons early on, they are looking good too.

I was looking out at the flower beds this morning and realized that i need something white that looks good now. The roses and lilies around the white gardens have finished and the only things blooming now are the persicaria, the white petunias on the pole, a few stray campanula, and some white geraniums (pelargoniums, not hardy ones). Speaking of hardy ones, mine are finished now - the white ones that are in there (Phaeum album and - shoot, i've got Gil's disease! LOL Another album anyway). Other hardy geraniums that i've had have become amazingly weedy and i'm still trying to get rid of Phaeum (dk purple). Orion is always beautiful, even though it's in a bed that gets woefully neglected.

Pot Marigold, also known as Calendula officinali is an annual that readily reseeds. It has yellow to orange coloured blooms that persist until it snows. My first experience with the plant was unpleasant -- it was the dominant weed in my vegetable patch. I have come to appreciate the late summer/ fall colour. When the plant gets unruly, just cut it back.

Marcia - How about hydrangea? A woman I know has about 6 of them in a row and they're all in full bloom right now =:)

How about some lantana? Mine's been flowering profusely all summer long, and we've had a very cool and wet growing season here. You'd do even better with it with your conditions.

I'd also recommend some of the perennial asters -- they're really not planted enough, and are certainly lovely.

Helenium, rudbeckia, echinacea are all good choices for now.

Hydrangeas for sure - the newer ones based on the paniculata species seem to be super hardy.

Meadowsweet is coming out as well - heavenly scent!

Joe Pye Weed should be out as well.

Ha! Ha! Northspruce !

You asked........

Now you have enough awesome suggestions that your head must be spinning and your wallet cringing, LOL !

I have a hydrangea, and it actually needs to be moved, but it wouldn't fit where i want more flowers. Good thought, though!

This is a question I wrestle with around this time every year. I like to use mainly perennials, so that narrows my choices a lot.
Anyway here's what's blooming in my back border. Starting with the heliopsis and going clockwise, monkshood, phlox, anise hyssop,Lorraine Sunshine helopsis, pearly everlasting, daylily, veronica, campanula. I had planned on potted dahlias providing a punch of colour, but the slugs are destroying them.

Toward the back.....a solid coloured monkshood, daylilies, heliopsis, and climbing the fence in the back corner, wild cucumber.

In my front island bed.....achillea Parker's variety, potentilla in the background, rudbeckia Tiger Eye, dahlia, gazania, pansies and eryngium. There's also a solidago but it isn't blooming yet.

Pudge, this is a different variety of yarrow than you showed. Does yours self-seed quite a bit? I also have a different clump of yellow clump of yarrow that has never wandered or seeded. I wish I knew what it was.

Bloomin' awesome Marie!! I especially love the phlox! What is the blue grassy one in the front of the last pic?

That's Blue Oat grass. It should be much larger than that, but I almost lost it in that tough winter of 2009, so it's starting over. It's a clump forming grass with stiff leaves. I've expanded the point of the bed a bit so I'll be moving it over some.

I think we lost Gillian. She's dizzy from all our great suggestions and can't see straight enough to type, LOL !

Or, her DH got wind of this and has told her he doesn't want to remortgage the house to feed her addiction =:)

Your beds are beautiful, Marie. I've used the Yarrow blooms for dried arrangements the past couple of years, also for fresh bouquets (wonderful cuts - they last forever) and have cut the rest to prevent reseeding, so I can't answer your question on if they do reseed. Since the flowers last so long, maybe they don't have time to mature completely and therefore no reseeding?

Marcia, my Casablanca lily is blooming now - that would go nicely in your white garden.

Another plant blooming now is balloon flower (Platycodon) - I have got to get them out of the holding area - they're pretty!

My Casablanca is also blooming now as well as my malva Zebrina. Also another bloom on my tiger lilies and late blooming daylilies. Everything is about 2 weeks behind here I think.

Lots of lilies and daylilies still blooming here. Ornamental grasses are putting on a good show.

Pudge I see some Goats beard in the background of one of your photos, still don't have that plant in my garden. I want this plant so baddddddd!

don't say Lythrum Marica, you don't want to go thru this again. lol Mine is putting on a nice show right now too. ;)

Nice gardens everyone!

Hey Sharon - good to see you here! Many of us wish you'd visit more often. :)

This crowd is much more tolerant of things! No one has cut my head off for having the lythrum and i even revived the old thread earlier on to let people know that it hasn't reseeded one bit.

My goatsbeard is still looking great as well.

You're seeing the tops of good old corn, Sharon, although I do have Goatsbeard in another part of the yard. One of my plants produces a ton of viable seed each year and I just deadheaded and trashed those seedheads about 2 weeks ago. I'll poke around under some leaves and see if I missed any, you're more than welcome to the seed - they are an excellent winter sowing candidate.

CORN, lol, omg, these damn progressive lenses! I guess I will plant corn next year then. Oh for sure, if you can find any left over seed that would be great, if not, next year ;)