I’m taking a few days off, so check back after Labor Day.

Happy gardening!

What’s the point of gardening if you don’t have lots of cut flowers to bring inside from May to fall?

A new book from Timber Press, “Garden to Vase: Growing and Using Your Own Cut Flowers,” landed on my desk this week and it looks like a real winner.

Year after year it seems, Timber Press comes out with some of the best garden books. Unlike so many publishers lately, they don’t go cheap on the color art. Lots of good photos here by Allan Mandell; text by Linda Beutler, a garden designer in Oregon.

Here’s the jacket.

The best part of the book is the back section called “Plants for the Cutting Garden: Flowers, Foliage and Fruit.” It’s a 121-page alphabetical list of some 200 plants, with full descriptions about fragrance, culture, availability, harvesting and vase life.

The July/August issue of The American Gardener has a wonderful cover story on “Pleasures of the Evening Garden” by Peter Loewer. He’s written more than 15 gardening books, including “The Evening Garden.”

The magazine, a good one, is published by the American Horticultural Society. Here’s a link to the Web site, but you have to be a member to read the whole article.

I’ve learned from my own experience that certain colors work well as daylight begins to fade.

White really does light up the night. Here are some photos of my ‘Annabelle’ hydrangeas at dusk one night earlier this summer.

Pale violet and lilac colors also light up in the evening. Petunias, I think on the same night:

And hostas:

Chartreuse works well, too.

My next challenge is to plant more things with nighttime aromas: angel’s trumpets (brugmansia), moonflowers, nicotiana and evening stock. Perfect for an evening by the pool some day…

Sarah Bracey White asked me to get the word out about a flower show in Greenburgh on Sept. 14-15.

Here’s her email:

“Parkway Gardens/Parkway Homes Garden Club will sponsor their 5th consecutive Fall Standard Flower Show at Greenburgh Town Hall Friday, September 14th and Saturday, September 15th, 2007.

“On Friday morning, accredited judges from National Garden Club, Inc. will view the show and make awards using NGC standards. The garden club show will include floral designs, youth exhibits, horticulture, and floral specimens from community members.

“In 2003, after a long hiatus, the 50 year old community garden club resumed its annual flower show.

“The public is invited to view the show Friday afternoon between 2:30 and 7 pm and Saturday, from 9 am until noon. There is no admission charge.

“For more information, contact club president Gwen Cort at (914) 428-8513. The Parkway Gardens/Parkway Homes Garden Club Flower show is co-sponsored by the Greenburgh Arts and Culture Committee.

“Greenburgh Town Hall is located at 177 Hillside Avenue, Greenburgh, NY. The building is handicapped accessible.”

Did you know you can mix up five herbal oils and make your own bug spray?

Mary Larkin has been doing it for years — first for herself, then for her husband and his construction crews, then a wider circle of friends and gardening clients.

This spring, she decided to go big-time and really market and sell her all-natural Honey Birch Farms bug spray. I wrote an article in today’s paper about Mary and her bug spray.

Here’s Mary in her Southeast kitchen, mixing up a batch.

Another of Mary.

She gave me a bottle to try a couple of weeks ago and I love the stuff. It doesn’t stink and smell fake or chemically like others I use.

Bugs really like me. (I’m one of those people that gets taken on picnics as bait. In a crowd of 20, I’m often the only one getting bitten.)

To make the bug spray, she starts with five essential oils: lemongrass, eucalyptus, citronella, juniper and rosemary.

Mixes them up.

Then she pours the final mix into 8-ounce blue bottles.

She keeps the bottles in this old tin container to catch the runoff.

And the finished bottles. Sorry for blurry, but it’s the only closeup of the bottle that I shot. You can go to Mary’s Web site, honeybirchfarms.com, for a better photo (and ordering/buying info).

Mark Vergari also shot video for a TV segment that’s supposed to run tomorrow on our Hudson Valley NewsCenter Now show on RNN cable TV.

Here’s Mark.

Mary’s also a really good gardener. Here’s an earlier post of mine about her work on Michael Fuch’s garden in Katonah.

If you want to start a butterfly garden, I can’t imagine a better first plant than butterfly bush, or Buddleia davidii.

This handsome flowering shrub really comes into its own in late August and lasts well into the fall if you keep deadheading the spent blooms to encourage new growth.

The pale green leaves and tiny lacy flowers that cover the ends of each of the long panicles give the plant a soft, delicate appearance.

But don’t be deceived — this is one tough perennial. It thrives in long periods of hot weather and drought and comes right through most Hudson Valley winters. Deer resistant, too.

Butterflies, bees and hummingbirds love this plant. It’s not unusual for me to see five monarchs at a time feasting on the honey-scented flowers of a single plant.

Butterfly bushes like rich, moist soil with good drainage and plenty of sunshine. They come in a wide array of colors: white, pink, lavender, purple and mauve.

When new buds begin to emerge in March or April, you can cut back your butterfly bushes pretty drastically. I cut mine to about 12 to 18 inches. Just be sure to wait until you see new growth at the bottom of the stems.

Here’s this same stand of butterfly bush after a spring haircut.

As sort of a science experiment, I planted an indoor herb garden in a lighted contraption from AeroGarden few weeks ago. Here’s an earlier post to see what it looked like after the seeds sprouted.

Here’s a link to the AeroGarden site.

I chose the Italian herb package: basil, parsley, oregano, mint, thyme, garlic chives and savory. Here’s how it looked on July 23:

As expected, the basil and mint are thriving. The thyme looks good and there’s still some hope for the oregano and chives.

And earlier this week:

Again, tons of mint and basil, with thyme a distant third. Chives and oregano and parsley are alive, but that’s about all. Savory disappeared entirely.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the outdoor herb garden has exploded. Seems to happen every August.

Lots of sage and chives.

Do you grow blue basil? I don’t care for its taste, but I love the flowers. They stay like this for most of the summer, getting larger by the week.

And another view.

I planted marjoram for the first time this spring, then sort of lost track of it. See this tall green plant in the foreground? I was sort of hoping that was marjoram or maybe something else worthwhile.

Well, while weeding this weekend I found the marjoram tag next to a long-dead little plant. And my mystery “herb” began to flower. Yup, it’s purple loosestrife. What a dope …

The dog days of August can really bring out the worst in a garden. But I know I can always count on garden phlox to brighten up the perennial border in late August and early September.

Known botanically as Phlox paniculata, this old-fashioned cottage garden favorite is a reliable, tough perennial that looks good in lots of settings.

It has large dome-shaped clusters of small blooms in shades of white, pink, crimson, purple and blue. Some varieties offer flowers with centers in contrasting colors. Most of mine are various shades of pink.

Like mums, phlox will grow into bushier, fuller plants if pinched back in June. You may delay the blooms by a couple of weeks, but who cares in late summer when so much of the garden has died back or gone to seed?

Pinching and thinning the plants also encourages good air circulation and helps to avoid powdery mildew, a common problem with phlox. Watering them at ground level early in the day instead of from above or in the evening also helps to prevent mildew (you don’t want to get the leaves wet).

Phlox are heavy feeders that like rich organic soil and regular applications of fertilizer or compost. They do best in full sun but will tolerate some afternoon shade. They don’t particularly care for high heat and humidity.

Stands of phlox can be divided every three to five years.

In response to my mid-August blahs post, I got a nice email from Ruth Rogers Clausen, garden writer extraordinaire and a resident of Thornwood. She’s a big fan of some of the new panicle hydrangeas on the market (or coming soon).

Here’s Ruth:

“Now is the time that the panicle hydrangeas (Hydrangea
paniculata) come into their own. Look for some of the
new selections such as ‘Limelight’, ‘Little Lamb’, and
‘Pinky Winky’. ‘Quickfire’ is another good one that
comes into bloom earlier and last through fall. These
are far superior to the old ‘Grandiflora’ or PeeGee.
WFF (that’s White Flower Farm, of course) offers ‘Quickfire’ and ‘Little Lamb’.”

Thanks Ruth. For photos and more info, check out the Proven Winners Web site or the one for Spring Meadow Nursery.or White Flower Farm.

Proven Winners sent me a couple of the new ‘Pinky Winky’ (ouch, who named the poor thing?), but they’re just a few inches tall so far. Should be great next year.

I’ve been talking to other gardeners and we all seem to be hit with a bad case of the mid-August gardening blahs.

The perennial beds are looking ragged and colorless (except for the phlox, which has morphed into some strange shade of Pepto-Bismo pink over the years).

The herb bed is bolting and suddenly on steroids. The annuals look spent and it’s too late in the summer to bother with new ones. I got a first rush of tomatoes and now lots of green ones again.

The big rains last week are bringing big weeds. The humidity keeps creeping back up.

Hmmmm, sounds like I need a vacation. What about you? What do you like to do in the garden in August? Any cures for the blahs?