salvia and turtlehead

At the end of august, the turtlehead in my yard bloomed. I hadn't looked them up- it was an impulse buy when I went to get ferns in springtime from a neighbor- so I did not realize they would flower at all.

It's quite a contrast, the dark foliage and the pale pink flowers. They don't last long- about a week or two. This is one plant my husband thinks looks like a weed, and I have to keep admonishing him not to pull it out. It does look a bit bug-eaten, but I hope will establish and maybe I can find means of spreading it around. I only have a handful under two trees.

Also a shade plant around trees, the japanese salvia is blooming yellow. These flowers are still going.

I have also wanted to spread this plant around yard. I dug up some that were getting too much sun,

and moved them to circle a tree in the front yard.

The plant divided easily into smaller stems with roots, so I had plenty to go around. Seen from the other side.

I also took some cuttings and brought in the house to see if I can grow new plants that way. The instructions I read for this online said to keep each cutting in a separate jar because some might go moldy and contaminate the other stems if they are together. That turned out to be correct- I lost half the cuttings to mold. You can see here the one on the left is growing roots, the one on the right has white fuzz. Ugh.

I've since potted up two that had the most roots, and have half a dozen left still trying to root in water. They take a lot longer to do this than coleus....

Bonus pic of a daddy longlegs on the salvia.