The last of the Allium christophii (the latest bloomer and the most chic) and the tall pendant bell-flowered bloom known as A. bulgaricum greet the earliest of the gorgeously gaudy Tall Bearded Iris.

The Tall German Iris need full sun to hold up the weight of their extremely beautiful and complicated flowers, and often still require staking. Order from Schreiner’s Iris to get a catalogue chock-full of true-to-life pictures.

Compare the Balinese godhouse garden bed at summer’s end, as opposed to picture #1 at summer’s beginning. Instead of Allium and Iris, you see the Voodoo Lily, Sauromatum gutattum, an orange Calla called ‘Mango’, the tuft-topped Pineapple Lily Eucomis — all fronted by the ferny fabulous blueish Eupohorbia ‘Fen’s Ruby’ that multiplies like crazy.

Spotted leaf hybrid Calla lilies (the light one is Picasso) among the dancing leaves of late summer bloomer Caryopteris divaricate.

This big Colocasia with the white stripe in the middle is called ‘Nancy’s Revenge’. It’s boldness looks great against the delicacy of this dogwood, Cornus kousa chinensis ‘SamZam’.

This vein-leaved beauty looks good 12 months a year...this late summer hue is preceded by stalks of green/orange berry-like seedheads and these leaves grown bigger and more pronounced through autumn and most of winter.

Contrasting Summer Foliage at a Client's Garden - note the bicolor maple is not a graft, but two saplings grown into a bicolor tree – a Dianne B trademark.

… dug for me by Wolfgang van Oehme himself from The Rosenberg Garden in Watermill, the first of the famous Oehme and Van Sweden gardens in New York. Yes, it bears a resemblance to cannabis because it is in the same family but I’ve never tried to smoke it.

This is the great biannual reseeder Angelica gigas. Springs up all over the garden at summer’s end — a very reliable biennial.