MGC October Meeting

The October meeting of the Mystic Garden Club was interesting and entertaining. As always the luncheon was tasty and a wonderful social event. It's a delight to mingle among friends you haven't seen for a while and catch up on their lives. We tried to move lunch along slightly by passing out the soup because our speaker was working on a time deadline.The speaker, Chippy Irvine, was excellent and shared a wonderful slideshow from her book "Shades of Country". The really surprising treat was the song she sang at the end of her presentation about receiving flowers. It was delightful and humorous and I only wish I could reproduce it.
Along with the normal business meeting we enjoyed some wonderful horticultural highlights. Barbara brought in an exotic, spectacular passion flower. I only had a camera phone with me but did my best to get a photograph.

My camera phone picture of Barbara's Passion Flower! How exotic

A better picture I found on the internet - Note Barbara's flower is just as exquisite.

We had a presentation on some great foliage plants for your gardens. Several varieties of persicaria, Red Dragon, Lance Corporal and Painter's Palette. They are low maintenance, shade tolerant, and not appetizing to deer.

Persicaria microcephala 'Red Dragon'

Persicaria microcephala 'Red Dragon'is a vigorous grower that trades one display of color for another as the season rolls along. A clump-forming perennial, 'Red Dragon' does well in combination plantings when mixed with annuals or perennials. It is an excellent product for a 1-gallon program. This new persicaria should be especially enticing to gardeners. It's a non-running form -- sterile so it's not seed invasive, non-stoloniferous so it's not root invasive.
Set off with red stems, this vigorous grower boasts spring leaves that are deep-burgundy with a plum or mint-colored chevron and a metallic sheen. Summer foliage becomes greener, accented by a red leaf margin and a red chevron on a red stem. While cooler areas are rewarded with better color in late summer, 'Red Dragon' is a splendid selection for any garden in the United States and Canada.
Small white flowers appear in early summer, but are insignificant.Height is 24 inches; width can run from 30 to 40 inches. Its growth rate is vigorous but the plant is not invasive. 'Red Dragon' tolerates most soils, including heavy clay. It is suitable for borders, beds, rockeries or as a container perennial.