Hello all.

Novice gardener here with a dilemma! I moved in with my now finance last fall into a nice home with a managable yard in South City St. Louis and have had a grand time cleaning out old flower beds this spring. The lilacs were incredible  beautiful and fragrant for all of 3 weeks oh how I miss them! The 3 rose bushes have flowered once and IÂve dead headed them back to the 5 leaf branches so they will flower again. Apparently I also have some glads the popped out while we were on vacation so IÂm excited about those too although they really need to be moved.

Being such a novice I really havenÂt a clue of what blooms when so I do as much research as I can on the Missouri Botanical Garden Site but I have a special event I now need to plan. WeÂve decided to have our wedding in our backyard on September 4th of this year. As of now all the flowers I know of that are planted will most likely be done flowering by then so IÂd like some advice on what to plant that will flower late Aug & Early September.

I have some huge hostas and a honeysuckle that are doing well in a mostly shady rocky garden near the house  will they still be vibrant? I know the lilacs will stay green and I plan to cut them back this weekend but only the branches without new buds so I donÂt ruin next yearÂs flowers. IÂm going to put white lights in those to extenuate how beautiful they are. I only have another small hosta, a small lilac bush and I think a tiger lilly (which has a million buds right now!) in that bed which is about 16 foot long so I have room to add pretty much anything I want. I was also thinking about putting containers of potato vine and maybe another vine but dark in color on the ledge of our garage which will run about 30 feet wide so IÂll need several containers.

I think IÂm starting a near impossible task but I would love a lush full garden to serve as the backdrop for this every important day to me so any and all advice is requested! Most of the yard gets full sun so I think the possibilities are endless I just canÂt wrap my head around it all!

Thanks so much in advance for sharing your wisdom.

~K