Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, September 15, 2009

The Cenizo/Leucophyllum frutescens (also known as Barometer Bush) did not lie this time!

A genuine rain started with gentle soaking drops on Friday morning - turning into a downpour that temporarily flooded the Secret Garden on Saturday By Sunday afternoon the torrents had become a mist again, leaving just over six-and-one-half inches to refresh the plants and calm down the gardener. Other plants may respond to the rain in a few days, but the first batch looks quite patriotic! Oxblood Lilies/Rhodophiala bifida add red to the garden - after MSS of Zanthan gave these symbols of old Austin to me a couple of years ago I planted them in small clumps front and back, not taking any chances on one location. Here's her definitive post on them. They're up in five different places so far, with two patches still question marks. I think these definitely qualify as what May Dreams Carol calls a Blogalong-Passalong!
White comes from the Hibiscus moscheutos 'Blue River II'. This flower is not fully formed - maybe it was too dry when the bud developed? I can see some buds left so there are more chances to have the dinner-plate size flowers this plant can produce

White also comes from Garlic Chives/Allium tuberosum - complete with decorative bee:
More garlic chives with an interesting insect I'd never noticed before - it took some time, but I found similar insects on What's That Bug that were identified as being Soldier Flies in the genus Odontomyia
We've had the Blues all summer - the blue Plumbago auriculata didn't seem to mind the heat & drought since it got those precious last drops squeezed out whenever the hose was rolled up and because it's sheltered from afternoon sun by the house wall.

I handwatered the blue Salvia guaranitica and this Salvia 'Black & Blue" regularly to keep the flowers and their nectar coming - we see the hummingbirds every day and Salvias are their favorite
The Brugmansia should be a light yellow but looks almost white after being bleached and drenched, holding tattered petals over a small green garden spider
Near the brugmansia one of the Amarcrinum lilies sent up a fragrant stalk
In front more Oxblood lilies bloom along with slender white rainlilies, the pink rainlilies/Zephyranthes 'Labuffarosea' and some native yellow Habranthus tubispathus/Copper Lilies... I delayed this post trying to get photos of the pink & yellow & white rainlilies but none of the pictures came out...maybe next year!


The front yard looks pretty bad - until the Divas of the Dirt come and rescue it later this month you will see only close-ups!
This Evolvolus 'Blue Daze' in the Pink Entrance Garden got extra crispy a couple of times when I forgot to water the hanging basket. But a good drink uncurled the leaves and made it bloom again

The Duranta erecta/Blue Skyflower in the same bed might have produced more flowers with more sun, or it might fried up and had no flowers at all. These blooms are enough for me.

This little vignette in the front bed with the birdbath almost looks like a Northern Spring instead of September in Texas, doesn't it? The Blackfoot daisies/Melampodium leucanthum still count as daisies, and the unopened pink rainlily looks a little like a tulip if you squint your eyes, with lavender-colored Lantana filling in for rock cress or woodland phlox.

Move along to the back now - nothing else up here to see!
The weight of the 8-foot native sunflower made it fall over when the rain turned the soil soft. I couldn't ignore the roots pulled part way out of the ground - too many goldfinches love this big weedy flower full of seeds. I stood it up, used an extra metal shepherd's hook as a stake and stepped it in again around the base - hope it works.

Along the South fence the bulb bed is bright with Red Oxblood lilies
A midnight look at the Moonflower vine/Ipomoea alba - with the leaves invisible in the dark, it looks like a White flying saucer
And this may be the last GBBD of 2009 for the Blue Butterfly Pea/Clitoria ternatea


I'm grateful to Carol of May Dreams Garden, the inventor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for giving us a chance to show off our flowers...and I'm grateful for rain, and soon I hope to be grateful to the Divas of the Dirt because my turn for 2009 is coming up. There's a lot to do before they come, so I'll catch up with blogs and blooming day posts in a week or so.
May your garden make you happy this month, too.

Snapping After Midnight

Although it didn't fall in my neighborhood, other parts of Austin got a little rain yesterday. Closer to San Antonio, Victory Gardener Pamela Price rejoiced on Twitter that 4" of precious water arrived at her garden. Send some showers in this direction! Temperatures are hovering closer to 90°F than 100°F this week. We need only one more day over 100°F to tie the all-time record and 2 to smash it. Now public wishes for one more heat spike have popped up all over Twitter. Or as MSS of Zanthan put it, "We've come this far and !#$#@* we want the record."
Couldn't have said it better myself! We do want it!


Even though some of the garden is wheat-colored, just a little hand-watering was enough to make my favorite annual combination of Moonflower vine and Blue Butterfly Pea climb to the top of the obelisk and bloom again.

I went out after midnight and snapped this photo of them entwined. In past years they've bloomed through October - always welcome, but never so much as in this year when usually dependable plants have died or have no flowers.


My daughter Lilly wondered how big the moonflowers are but the tape measure couldn't be found. I held the lovely flower in my big ol' peasant hand - the edge of the petals almost seemed to ripple in the dark, like a butterfly instead of a flower.


Did anyone else think of Patsy Cline when you read the post title? September 8th was the day she was born - here's a video clip of her singing "Walking After Midnight". I'll be humming that tune next time the camera and I take a midnight stroll.

October 2008 - Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

The air doesn't feel like autumn yet, but certain plants tell me it's here - the ones that bloom when the days begin to grow shorter. That's Salvia regla above. I found a starter plant on sale at the Natural Gardener last month and put it in a gravel area with some afternoon shade. I love the color! Another name for this salvia is Mountain Sage.and with luck it can become a four-foot tall hummingbird shrub.


Last month's Oxblood lilies finished flowering and turned to putting up fresh new green leaves. The lily above is the only one that made a seedhead. MSS of Zanthan Gardens - she who gave me the Oxblood/Rhodophiala bifida bulbs- mentioned occasional seed formation a few years ago .

The asters have been blooming for about 10 days - these aren't the tall New England beauties, but are shorter hybrids called Aster frikartii 'Wonder of Staffa'. It seems they get to keep their botanic name of Aster while the native fall asters and Michaelmas daisies have been moved to Symphyotrichum.


In spring I transplanted one Mexican Mint Marigold plant from a hypertufa trough to the larger triangle bed. It's a foot taller than the other Tagetes lucida plant still in the container and is already blooming.
Here's a closeup of the flowers - the leaves can be used as a tarragon substitute in cooking.



With cooler weather the Salvia 'Hot Lips' got its lips back -blooms were solid red or white a couple of weeks ago.
Some bloggers posted Hyacinth bean flowers/Dolichos lab-lab months ago! Mine got a late start, but they're doing well on the arch Pam/Digging passed along to me last November.

Next to the arch the Barbados Cherry/ Malpighia glabra shrub is blooming - this small tree had a rough winter and skipped the spring bloom. Did you notice how good it looks in the rain? We had a half-inch overnight - Hallelujah!



These are buds, not blooms - it's a recent passalong plant from my friend Ellen who got it from another friend. All we know is that it's some kind of Toad Lily/Tricyrtis. If the flowers open I'll have to look for help to identify it - these links show what happens when you enter 'tricyrtis' in the search box at blogs of the Iowa Victory Gardener , Mr McGregor's Daughter Don the Iowa Gardener and Blackswamp Kim .



White impatiens have bloomed for months but never get their photo taken. They looked too pretty to ignore after those welcome raindrops washed their faces. Once the rain ends I may put a list of other plants in bloom on my Annie's Addendum blog. Those lists are a pain to make, but really nice to have as a reference!
Edited October 16th - complete list with my best efforts at botanical names is now up.


More stalwarts of the garden - the Blue Pea vine/Clitoria ternatea, the 'Julia Child' rose, and the Blue Butterfly Flower/Clerodendrum ugandense have blended their soft colors for months. The obelisk doesn't belong exclusively to the Blue Pea Vine - it's shared by a vine of Ipomoea alba.

You didn't really think you could leave without seeing at least one Moonflower photo, did you? I've been enchanted with the Moon Flower Vine for years.

May Dreams Carol has links to Garden Bloggers around the world who are joining her in the monthly celebration of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Shutter Snapping, Spraying & Shopping

Does anyone out there know what caused these bumps on clematis buds? I've never noticed them before this year. Vertie is taking an entomology course - maybe she'll know the answer.
After that bud opened the flower still looked pretty against the white wall, but the bumps showed through the reddish-purple petals as white spots.
Root Beer Plant/Piper auritum has huge leaves that are used in Central Mexican cuisine. It's more common name is Hoja Santa and its odd white flowers were so hard to photograph that I just listed them for bloom day instead of showing them. I hope this photo can finally give you an idea of what they're like. I also hope the photo will enlarge if you click on it.
Although the Hoja Santa planted in a border is struggling, this plant is in a container and had enough water to bloom. Mine are interesting novelties but the Hoja Santa at EastSide Patch is a major player in the landscape!

Last October Pam/Digging took us along when she visited the Chicago Botanical Gardens. and showed us Salvia madrensis. I found a pot of this tall yellow-blooming salvia at the Natural Gardener last spring and watched it grow slowly from a small plant to its present seven-foot height. Can you see it peeking out behind the plumeria? No wonder its common name is Forsythia Sage! But it's so tall that any photos of the blossoms are either lost in green foliage or washed out against the unrelenting blue sky.
So many things that I want to photograph are way over my head! This mockingbird has been singing non-stop. I watched the bird for half-an-hour as it flitted from one branch to another within the canopy of a large yaupon. I'd previously noticed mockingbird feathers scattered in several places around the front garden and wonder if one of the wandering neighborhood cats caught this bird's mate.
Is he disappointed in love or just dismayed that the gardener was too busy taking pictures to brush out and refill the birdbath?


Philo and I had a great time at the Sunset Valley Farmers Market yesterday - a friendly, lively place with live music, wonderful food and many cool plants.

I'm still browsing through recipes for the White Patty Pan squash but these incredibly delicious tomatoes, the wonderful whole wheat pita from the Mediterranean Chef and delicious Rosemary-Spinach pesto from Sgt Pepper's Sauces didn't need any recipes!
This small Kaffir lime tree was only $6! The leaves are used as flavoring, especially in Thai cooking. (This is something I learned from the movies - not from real life.) It's a tender tree so I'll grow it in a container and bring it inside during cold weather.

We scooped the last gallon of compost tea from the Ladybug Products booth. Fresh compost tea is perishable - buying it meant we had to use it in the garden within a few hours. We sprayed it everywhere and hope it helps the plants deal with the stresses of this year.
Last night I took the camera out to play with the night flash again, snapping one of the geckos that hang out under the roof overhang.
Because the intense yellow of the Forsythia Sage/Salvia madrensis didn't show up against the sky in daylight, I got the idea to see how it looked with the night flash. Pretty dramatic, isn't it?
I then turned the lens to the Moonflower vine/Ipomoea alba once again, using the night flash to see its heart, glowing like a star in the night.

Today is the last day of the Austin City Limits Fest - and as a loyal Austinite, I'm glad the crowd stayed dry. But once the fest is over, I sure wish we could sing along with the Beatles to September In The Rain.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for September

Do you remember July? Many of the plants seen on July's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day haven't forgotten it: A new stalk of Amarcrinum 'Fred Howard' suddenly shot up next to a pink cuphea full of bees. The pink gaura never stops, the balloon flowers keep opening as long as I pop off the old buds, and there are a few mini-roses, too.


The container plants like impatiens and this lantana-and evolvolus combo may not stop until Halloween. The blossoms continue on Oxalis, butterfly bush, orange cuphea and Batfaced cuphea, dianthus, Turkscap, Rock Rose/Pavonia, Salvia greggii and Zinnia linearis. One or two buds appear biweekly on the 'Little Gem' magnolias. The Russian sage plants all look ratty and the phlox does, too, but I'll count their few florets as blooms. When mealy bugs attacked the 'Black & Blue' salvia and the Salvia guaranitica I cut them down to ground level.



Do you remember August? September doesn't look much different here, still decorated with one open stalk of Hedychium coronarium/White Ginger, the delicate Cypress Vine, Coral Honeysuckle, Plumeria/Frangipani, Bengal Tiger canna, night-blooming jasmine and blue plumbago.




Looking out the back door I see the obelisk concealed beneath moon vines and blue pea vines. At right, nearer the fence, the Blue River II white hibiscus is balanced by the white 'Acoma' crepe myrtles at left. My neighbors on the left and at the back grow tall pink crepe myrtles which loom overhead. Something tall & yellow is missing - the native Sunflower is just a browned stalk now.




Once again the passionflowers have buds, with no new caterpillars in evidence. I hope they get the chance to open.




All the yellow trumpets turned white and fell from the Brugmansia/Angels Trumpet, leaving buds as promissory notes for next week. I feel a little guilty about this, since gardeners like Kate in Saskatchewan have already had to cover plants at night.

The most exciting September openers were a gift from MSS at Zanthan Gardens, the Oxblood lilies/Rhodophiala bifidia seen in the last post. I planted the bulbs in small clumps in six parts of the yard, and they've opened one after another [ perhaps in response to sun exposure?] then faded. This bouquet opened just in time.




Two large plants of Pineapple sage/Salvia elegans are barely budded, opening only one flower. I love the smell of the crushed leaves and have read they can be used in fruit salad, teas, and jelled desserts. Last winter knocked my plants back to the ground but in gentler years flowers also form in spring so they're here to greet the hummingbirds upon their return. I'm not sure if the salvia will open fully before our hummingbirds leave this fall.






The annual portulaca sulked during the rainy part of summer. It's a chunkier cousin to moss rose which never grew much, but I like that coral color.




This summer's odd weather also delayed the blooming of the tropical milkweed/Asclepias curassavica - I haven't seen any Monarch caterpillars as yet. Several generations of larvae grew on last year's plants and these flowers are ready if the Monarchs return.




Two of the three plants of Blue Skyflower/Duranta erecta finally deigned to bloom. The flowers on both are in the blue-purple range, but this one has white edges that reflect light in an interesting way - all I did to the photo was to resize it.



Oh - here's another new blossom. My friend Ellen, giver of the gorgeous grape-scented iris, also gave me a start of an unusual kind of Butterfly bush. We're pretty sure it's Buddleia lindleyana. Unlike butterfly bushes such as 'Black Prince'. this one is not upright but weeps, dangling long droopy flowers that don't start until late summer.




Okay, May Dreams Carol! Here's the final flower for September Bloom Day - I can't leave without posting this night photo with flash, celebrating the fragrant flowers on the Moon vine.