This is a Colocasia esculenta, also known as wild taro or elephant ear, growing beside a pond at Tony Avent's Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, N.C., which more than 600 garden writers from around the country descended upon recently. For most of these folks, this was a highlight of the annual symposium. Tony is a famous plantsman, horticultural explorer (especially to Southeast Asia) and all-round garden personality. His nursery is fun, and though I don't regard him with the same hero-worship my fellow GW's seem to, even I have to admit the man has an amusing catalogue and he sells way cool plants. In the gardens at Plant Delights, just about every inch is carefully planted and labelled and yes, even though this group of people probably has more plants per capita than any other selected group in the universe, a lot of them were buying more here. I must be getting jaded. I no longer hyperventilate when I see a plant sale. But I did experience slight shortness of breath over this Colocasia esculenta. Its leaves were smooth as velvet. The color was smokey and sultry. Raindrops were still visible on the surface. Outstanding. No wonder gardeners go for these bold, heart-shaped leaves on plants of great girth - sometimes eight feet tall with leaves two or three feet across and three feet long. Besides their beauty, these guys are grown for food in places like Hawaii, which uses the tubers to make poi. Outside of the N.Y. Times crossword puzzle and Scrabble games, that is probably the only time in my life I've ever used the word "poi." Elephant ear - the perfect water-garden plant.

Here I am, moments after being stung by an enraged honeybee, outfitted in a hat with veil that probably would've prevented that sharp pain in my forehead. I was visiting Jim Bobb at his hives at Morris Arboretum, lovely setting, and Jim was explaining that honeybees really are benign. They don't sting without provocation, and unlike yellow jackets, they sting once and fall over dead. (So there's some comfort.) I was instructed to stand very still, let the honeybees explore and under no circumstances, swat. So I quietly took notes as he spoke, trying not to move or communicate my discomfort to the bees, thousands of them in these 24 hives. But quite a few of them were curious, and alighted on my pants, my arms, shoulders, head, even my hand as I wrote. Still, I didn't flinch. Then one intrepid honeybee got into my hair and couldn't get out. I swear, I was only trying to help him navigate an exit, but before I knew it, the air was filled with an urgent buzzing, I was swatting and running and zap! I got it right in the head. Been a long time since I was stung by anything, so it was a bit of a surprise to note how much it hurt. Jim immediately swiped the stinger with his "hive tool," and supposedly I would feel no more pain. Actually, it hurt for awhile. P.S. I still love honeybees. P.S. #2 Read all about my misadventures at Morris this Friday, in Home & Design.

Salvias like this one were but one of the glorious features in the gardens at Montrose, in Hillsborough, N.C., which I visited with other garden writers late last month. They were everywhere, in vivid shades of pink and red, blue and purple, and in such masses that they appeared wild. Montrose is the home of Nancy and Craufurd Goodwin, and the grounds cover 61 acres. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the property, its buildings and gardens, are under the auspieces of the Montrose Foundation, which means they'll be sustained as they are after the Goodwins can no longer care for them. No chance of that at the moment. Nancy is in her 70's and has only two employees to help. I liked this garden, which is quite famous and not as formal as most. Woven around the house, which dates to the mid-1800's, are a rock garden, a scree garden, acres of woodland plantings, sunny perennial gardens with color schemes like blue and yellow or red, black and white, a tropical garden, a purple garden with more colchicums than I've ever seen in bloom. I liked the idea that each part of the garden had its own time to shine and once it passed, that was that. No one is running around plunking pots of mums in the ground to add instant color. But wasn't it great to see the salvias still in bright bloom, in late September.

I've seen this plant - Verbena bonariensis, Brazilian verbena or purpletop vervain - in many places, most recently at Chanticleer, but really, all over the place - and I keep meaning to get its name. Finally did, on vacation, at this most amazing place: Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, north of Boston, run by Massachusetts Audubon Society. It's 2,265 acres, Mass Audubon's largest sanctuary - 10 miles of trails, woods, ponds and, of course, the river, which is loaded with otter, fish, turtles and other wildlife. We stood in silent awe watching several painted turtles and a few huge snappers feeding and chasing each other in a pond on a lazy sunny morning. There were but a handful of other human visitors, but this place was a human sanctuary, too. Much needed. Back at the visitors' center, we came upon this lovely, wild-looking butterfly garden, loaded up with Brazilian verbena and the predictable butterflies and bees. This plant is a self-sower, and a lot of gardeners complain about its invasiveness. Others love it, and welcome its pushy habits. I have to say, it's outstanding when mixed with butterfly bush, goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace in a smorgasbord for critters. The fields at this sanctuary were filled with more butterfly-friendly milkweed plants gone to seed. Walking through them was an experience. Cardinals and other colorful birds swooped in front of us. Bees and cicadas were humming and buzzing so loud it was smile-inducing. Imagine the sounds at night! My garden is as critter-friendly as I can make it, but I would like to get some of this verbena. It's tall, lacecap-topped, great purple color, likes heat and looks so elegant with its long, stiff stems. Hope it takes. It'll be a reminder of a pleasant interlude, a safe sanctuary, from the summer of 2009.

This is Rudbeckia subtomentosa 'Henry Eilers,' otherwise known as sweet coneflower, and it's a great example of a plant you read about but don't fully appreciate till you see it in the flesh. I found it at Chanticleer, in Wayne, in the cutting garden, I believe, but it was two weeks ago and the memory is fading. I've either not seen it since it came on the market in 2003 or didn't pay attention, but it's definitely on the radar now. You can tell it's related to the black-eyed Susan, and we all like that one well enough. But it's different - five feet tall or so with quill-shaped, rolled petals, giving it a spare, bright-eyed, pinwheel look. It apparently was named for the nurseryman and prairie restoration specialist who came upon it along a streambed in Illinois and gets its common name - sweet coneflower - from the slight vanilla scent it occasionally gives off. I didn't think to smell it. But it's definitely like the name says. Sweet.

I'm headed out on vacation. Whew! It's about time. Yes, it is - time to attack that stack of books on the bedside table, including "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan, which I've been inching through for months, and "The Brother Gardeners," Andrea Wulf's excellent tale of 18th century naturalists, and two others culled from a large pile on my desk: "A Culinary Traveller in Tuscany" by Beth Elon (no explanation needed) and "The Gardener's Bedside Reader," a compendium of essays on my favorite subject. I'll also, of course, be out in the garden, which to judge from this picture is looking mighty fine. Don't be fooled. As I talk to other gardeners, I realize that I've been hit especially hard this year by rain-related funguses and wilts. A friend is dropping off fall-crop seedlings this weekend, which I'll put in the ground immediately, in hopes that I can somehow redeem this disastrous season. It is fun to see this hardy hibiscus rebound from a terrible fungus attack earlier in the summer. May it be an omen of what the last couple of weeks will be. Back in two weeks - with energy and ideas. Reading the paper you won't know I'm gone 'cause I've been working extra hard. Makes vacation even more essential and desirable.

That's the plan. Happy end of summer!

Say hey to Morgan Perlman, a 12-year-old from Bala Cynwyd about to enter the seventh grade. He and his parents had a vegetable garden this summer for the first time, but Morgan was the chief planter, tender and harvester for four raised beds measuring a neat four feet by four feet each. I visited Morgan and his mother Rachel yesterday to see how everything went. I'm here to report that it went spectacularly well! Morgan is quite the researcher, looking things up on the internet and consulting a very valuable book by Barbara Damrosch called "The Garden Primer." (Barbara and her husband Eliot Coleman have an organic farm in Maine.) I'm always talking about how much work goes into a vegetable garden because seed-sellers and others seem to go overboard in the other direction, implying that simply tossing seeds in the ground guarantees a bountiful harvest. The Perlmans didn't exactly toss seeds into the ground. They had Morgan to carefully plot the rows and insert the seeds and seedlings. The family ate fresh zucchini and squash, bush beans, eggplant, along with a lovely variety of herbs, all summer. Rachel is a wonderful cook and found many uses for all those squashes, including ratatouille and egg frittata. And while Morgan was a little reticent around a stranger, Rachel talked about how much she loved having company, serving food from the garden and telling her guests that it was homegrown. That's something we all love. Story to come - on Morgan and other first-time gardeners - in a couple of weeks.

This week I trucked down to South Jersey to visit the Maurice River Botanical Gardens and Reserve in Heislerville, Cumberland County. It's pronounced Morris River, and don't scratch your head. If you haven't heard of it, you're not alone. This is an eight-acre garden cultivated for the last 17 years by John DiOrio, whose fulltime job is corrections officer but whose longtime hobby and passion is plants, especially rare, unusual, endangered or tropical ones. John has a crazy collection of cactuses in this garden, and many other beds filled with wonderful stuff. He opens once a year to the public for a hummingbird festival. This year it's Aug. 29 and 30. (John and his gardens will be featured in a story on Aug. 28.) His reserve isn't Longwood Gardens by any stretch, though it's interesting to me that he's been there many times and loves it. His garden is informal, spread out and, except for the cactus area and a few other specialized spots, is pretty randomly planted. But - and this is no hyperbole - he knows every single plant in his collection ... where it came from, its proper name, its status and habits. He also plants to attract butterflies and hummingbirds. I know I wrote this week about the scarcity of butterflies this summer, but John obviously has had no such problem. The day I visited, they were fluttering about in clouds!  

The English garden: Who hasn't had the fantasy? Whether visiting Hampton Court outside London or tootling along a country road, what traveling gardener hasn't had the fantasy of living in a place with a classic English garden? Of course, I run the risk here that I did around the time of the Flower Show, when I ran around asking professional garden designers and horticultural scholars to tell me about the "classic Italian garden." Dumb me. There is no such thing in Italy, just as there's no such thing in Britain. But there are certain ideas and designs that we associate with those places. That's good enough for me. This garden isn't in England; it's in West Mount Airy, designed and carried out by Linda Fahy Newman, who was born and raised in central England and didn't discover her inner gardener till she and her husband bought this house 25 years ago. Here you can see her beautiful mixed border, done mostly in reds and purples with white accents. It's flowery and full and very pleasant - and you can read all about it and see lots more pictures in Friday's Home & Garden section. No wonder the Newmans often sit outside on a patio near this garden, one of many "outdoor rooms" Linda created on their one-acre parcel, and watch silently as clouds of bees and hummingbirds enjoy these plants. Can't think of a better way to pass a summer evening, no matter where your garden is.