If you’re like me, you find it easy to be inspired to garden in the springtime. Whether winter means shoveling vast piles of snow or trying to ward off the doldrums on long grey days, the first warming of the air in spring brings a smell of promise that can awaken the gardening desire in almost anyone.

But if springtime looks like this:

Then the end of summer tends to look like this:

Which makes it somewhat harder to get excited about gardening. Of course, we all know we should do it – tidy up the flower beds, deadhead the daisies, trim back the roses – but it’s so hard to feel motivated when the promise is all gone and all we’re left with is things dying back. Let’s face it, late summer gardening is mostly like cleaning up the ugly aftermath of a fantastic party.

So, here’s my best tip for staying excited about garden maintenance even at the end of the summer (or beginning of fall, depending on what early September means in your neck of the woods): plant late bloomers to keep the party going. If you have a few things that haven’t reached their full glory yet, it’s much easier to stay excited about tending those flower beds. After all, don’t the two-foot tall sedum, which have been so quietly succulent all summer, deserve their moment to shine?

If you want late-bloomers in full sun, try sedum or long-blooming Russian sage with its tall lavender spikes. (Both are pictured below; the sedum flowers look barely pink now but will ripen to a deep red as the fall progresses.)

In the shade, try balloon flowers or plantain lilies (pictured below). The lilies are large plants with broad leaves much like hosta, but the white flowers are on lower spikes and open to large trumpets.

So why am I telling you this now? Not just to make you jealous of someone else’s foresight, certainly. Instead, to suggest this: as you’re clearing out what has died back in your flower beds this end-of-summer, think about replacing some of your annuals with late-blooming perennials. They’ll just get bigger and better every year. Fall clean-up can be more inspiring if you think of it as planning time for the following growing season. Once colder weather sets in, curl up with a cup of steaming hot tea, and peruse books for plants that are hardy in your area, so you can make your garden work harder for you next year – even in the dry, hot days of late summer.

All photos by me, courtesy of my front yard. Oh, and a little bit of the back too.

MommyTime loves gardening with as many low-maintenance perennials as she can get her hands on. She blogs at Mommy’s Martini, sometimes about gardening and often about everything else running through her head. There are usually photos. You’ll have to bring your own martini.