Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for September 2017

GARDEN BLOGGERS BLOOM DAY for SEPTEMBER 2017

By AnnieinAustin for her Transplantable Rose Blog http://annieinaustin.blogspot.com/

Do you see what I see? That patch of red School House lilies means that the hours of daylight are reduced in number and the chance of a 100F day is almost zero.

Whether you call them School House Lilies, Oxblood Lilies or Rhodophiala bifida, they’re beautiful and welcome.

Only one Hurricane Lily has popped up so far – they’re planted in 6 or 7 places in my garden but they don’t bloom every year. [AKA Red Spider lilies/ Lycoris radiata.

The School House lilies and Hurricane Lilies bloom only once in late summer or early fall but other plants have kept color in the garden for months:

Alyssum, prostrate rosemary and basil keep bees happy with small white flowers in the herb troughs.

Two really deep freezes in an otherwise warm winter knocked off many container plants. Those empty pots were depressing! When guests were expected in March I picked up a few big-box store begonias as temporary replacements for frozen Calibrachoas. To  my surprise they have thrived and bloomed all summer. 

 

With hummingbirds in mind, we moved one of the obelisks from the shady back bed to the sunny triangle and planted Cypress vine at the base, where Salvia coccinea in coral and red and Salvia greggii in lavender and white already grew. Adding a punch or orange is some self-seeded milkweed.

 

A mystery plant showed up on the edge of the patio in spring – probably the seed was dropped by a bird. I watched it grow all summer, topping out at 7 feet, then forming seedheads.

At one point I thought it was Frostweed, but the tiny, fringed, flowers have no collar of petals like Frostweed. A friend made a tentative ID of Eupatorium odoratum. There is a definite pleasant fragrance so that sounds right to me. Butterflies and bees love it!

Staying low and gently spreading on the edge of the patio is Cobweb Spiderwort, once kept in a container. Last year I flipped a few broken-off stems onto the gravel and put small rocks over the ends. Tradescantia sillamontana loved the gravel, rooted and grew beautifully. When the cold weather killed most of the original plant, only the tips of this clump were damaged and it repaired itself speedily.

You won’t see much of a show today from the Blue Butterfly flower (AKA Rotheca myricoides, formerly Clerodondrum ugandense). A few bleached blooms remain on the plant in the triangle bed and the other big plant has only buds.

The daisy-shape in this little scene used to come from native perennial Blackfoot Daisies but they were barely annual here, not perennial. This year I put in the very similar looking Zinnia angustifolia. Only a few cosmos sprouted this year and I am glad to have them.

Happy Garden Bloggers Bloom Day to all of you and to Carol at May Dreams, ringmaster of this monthly floral circus. http://www.maydreamsgardens.com/2017/09/garden-bloggers-bloom-day-september-2017.html

By AnnieinAustin for her Transplantable Rose Blog http://annieinaustin.blogspot.com/

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, February 2015

When May Dreams Carol proposed her idea of bloggers everywhere posting photos of what was in bloom each month, I was up for it, and made a post for the first Garden Bloggers Bloom Day on February 15th, 2007. That was a long time ago by internet-standards... Carol's idea has staying power!

Sometimes I post for GBBD, sometimes not - but I wanted to be part of the 8th anniversary. This winter has been relatively normal, bringing some rain and multiple freezes, with the lowest temperature in my garden about 20F. That was cold enough  to knock off many tender plants. Then some recent warm days spurred plants into bloom - these daffodils began opening last week. The clump has increased - there were only 3 flowers in 2007.

Yesterday was mild with strong winds fluttering the leaves and petals as I tried to take photos. A cold front arrived this morning, dropping temperatures 30 degrees in an hour, with a good chance it will freeze tonight and tomorrow night.

As I formatted yesterday's photos and wrote about the weather, the feeling of déjà vu was so strong it made me dizzy. I reread that first GBBD post from 2007 and realized that most of the plants that bloomed eight years ago are blooming now. They've have some bad springs and some good springs, but they're still in the game.

Here's the Carolina Jessamine/Gelsemium sempervirens. Yes, those individual flowers may freeze, but the vine has thousands of buds in various stages of development, so reserved buds can still live to bloom later.

 

More of the yellow daffodils grow in front, with the clump increasing slowly. A light freeze won't ruin them - but they'll collapse if a February heat wave pops up and fries them.

These bulbs of Narcissus tazetta 'Grand Primo' were blooming for the first time in 2007. They look happy and quite pretty in this spot near the veranda steps. However, you may like them better in a photo than up close in real life. Some people call them fragrant, but I think they stink.

In Texas we buy pansies and violas in late autumn and enjoy their flowers until the heat gets them in late spring.

Texas Mountain Laurel is a beloved native shrub here in Austin, bearing clusters of fragrant, deep violet-blue flower. We eagerly await their bloom every year. In some parts of Austin they are trouble-free, but I've learned not to hope too hard for flowers in my far NW neighborhood, where a shrub covered in buds can lose every floret over one cold night.

That 'Fantasia Salmon' geranium blooming in the breakfast room in February 2007? Not blooming today, but it has buds, and May Dreams Carol says buds count! It's grown taller, too.

Just as in 2007, Rosemary is in bloom, along with the Sweet Olives outside. But now there are multiple varieties of Rosemary and double the number of Sweet Olives. Zoom in on the geranium photo and you can see buds, flowers and tiny lemons developing on the Meyers lemon, and a holiday cactus/Schlumbergia still in bloom.

Missing from 2007 is the Coral Honeysuckle, alive but not thriving in increasing shade with competition from  tree roots. Adding some gaudy to the list of blooms for February 2015 is the just-past-prime Pius X Camellia.

And with luck this old Cemetery Iris will still be able to open

and the buds of Four Nerve daisy will raise their bright faces to the sun

ready to shine for Garden Bloggers Bloom day in March. 

If your garden is under snow and winter seems endless take heart - it may be slow but it will come!

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.

A surprisingly Pleasant, Rainy GBBD for July, 2013

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.  

Rain is a big deal here, and it rained today! I watched through the kitchen window as the rain ran down the chain into the barrel and then stood on the front porch listening to the welcome sound. Instead of dust we had raindrops. Instead of the 104°F of Saturday afternoon, temperatures on Monday afternoon never broke 80°F.
 
The chance to make a Garden Blogger Bloom Day post featuring petals and leaves dampened by raindrops doesn't come along very often! I caught a few photos, mostly of plants near the house, and mostly of flowers with petals that hadn't disintegrated to mush in the rain.

There are two more rain chains directing water into the very important, long back wall border. This very desirable morning-sun, afternoon-shade spot is jammed full with Blue Plumbago, Tropical Milkweed, a Meyer's Lemon, a Satsuma orange, 'Carmen' peppers, a climbing rose, Grandma's phlox, Blue Butterfly Clerodendron, Pink cuphea, Burgundy oxalis, black Ophiopogon, Coreopsis 'Crème Brulee', three passalong daylilies and more, in the rain. 

 
Some years ago a couple of bulbs of Amarcrinum were given positions in this special, long border - the fragrant pink flowers appeared in the last post and even more flower stalks are up now. Here is  x Amarcrinum 'Fred Howard' in the rain. 

Over by the garden gate the Cenizo/Texas Sage had popped into bloom

Across from the Cenizo a daylily that had bloomed a while ago is surprising me. It appears that the developing bloom stalk stalled and shut down when we started seeing temperatures over 100°F. Now the stalk has extended and the buds are swelling, long after the other flowers faded. Here is Hemerocallis 'Devonshire' in the rain.


Behind the daylily are a Firecracker plant and a creamy white Salvia greggii. Let's take a closer look. 

The daylily, Firecracker plant and salvia have all been here for years, but on the other side of the daylily is a more recent addition, Asclepias currasivica 'Silky Gold'. This all-yellow selection of tropical milkweed seems to be settling in well and it sure does look pretty in the rain. 

Closer to the back fence a young 'Catawba' crepe myrtle bows down with the weight of water-logged blossoms. This tree is only shrub-sized right now, but it has the potential to transform this part of the garden as it grows into a tree.



Blasting afternoon sun combined with deep morning shade and a very dry winter is not the recipe for happy Phlox, but some handwatering and compost helped this Fanick's phlox in the pink entrance garden survive to make a few flowers. I was afraid I had lost this plant so am very happy to take a photo of it in the rain. 

There are a couple of beds in the garden that usually bloom with red, white & blue flowers around  Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. Those beds did not deliver this year, but a large patio container is displaying patriotic colors today. Here's a white Datura AKA Angel's Trumpet, with blue-violet petunias, white hummingbird sage and red hummingbird sage, in the rain.


So far my rain gauge has measured a little over 2" - there's been much more in some parts of Central Texas and much less in other parts of Austin. You may be tired of reading that little phrase, "In the Rain", but I'm sure not tired of saying it.

Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and keeps the links for all who want to be part of this pleasant tradition. This is her July post.


If I can get a complete list of what's in bloom along with the botanical names, it will appear at Annie's Addendum.  
(That list is now up, with a few more photos)
This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog. 

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day May 2013

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.

The May garden has few surprises, but unexpectedly cool nights, days under 90°F  and some rain in the last month have made the garden look greener than usual. Funny thing - although the rain wasn't heavy enough to refill the reservoirs and it didn't sink deep enough for the trees and shrubs, there was enough near the surface to pump up the grass paths around the Trapezoid Walk.

In other years the daylilies have been in full swing by mid-May. In this odd year, the passalong dwarf daylily 'Vi's Apricot' has some flowers - here mingling with the annual larkspur:

 Another passalong, the Orange Daylily/Ditch Lily from Gardener of Good & Evil, has bloomed with more larkspur, a patch of Salvia farinacea started with shared plants from Rock Rose, and a brand new 'Silky Yellow' tropical Milkweed from The Natural Gardener...

 Other varieties like the 'Best of Friends' from Pam at Digging have made buds but none are open yet. Our weather is now changing from damp to dry with temperatures soaring up into the 90's F - sure hope all these buds won't be blasted!

Seedlings from the annual larkspur turn up all over the garden each year in late winter. Some seedlings are weeded out - many are left to bloom in the spots they have chosen - larkspur popped up with the Oakleaf Hydrangea. This variety is 'Snow Queen' and the plant is in bloom for the third spring in a row.

  
Salvia coccinea, Hummingbird sage, also seeds around. I planted the lavender but these Hummingbird sages not only planted themselves - they've selected their own color scheme. Behind the scrim of salvias and lavender you can glimpse the climbing mini-rose, 'Red Cascade'.

Also self-selecting are the annual poppies. This one turned up in a hypertufa trough on the patio.

Near the trough are two small native wildflowers that were purchased and planted so we could see them from the table. Four nerve daisy blooms most of the year but the Blue-eyed grass usually makes a short visit. The unusual weather has kept it blooming.

A couple of feet away is a little tapestry composed of Silver ponyfoot, White-flowering sedum and a wandering Ice Plant.

After seeing Renee Studebaker's garden on tour last year, I came home and pruned the fig tree and the pomegranate tree in the Secret Garden, hoping to make them more productive. That pruning also gave more sun to the Pineapple Guava and it has more flowers than ever before! Will there be fruit this year?

Another shrub in bloom now is a fragrant, double, yellow oleander, growing in a bottomless wooden box. Twelve years ago this large shrub arrived as a one-foot-tall rooted cutting from Plant Delights. If you want to grow one, check out the current Plant Delights catalog.

Near the Sweetheart Arch the Shasta daisies have started, backed up by Salvia 'Hot Lips', Salvia guaranitica and Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue'. I like the way the rusty reddish brown of the arch at right is echoed by the burgundy-leaved cannas on the left

When the flowers are in bloom the insects are blooming, too! These 'Bush Early Girl' tomatoes are making fruit in the vegetable garden near the cilantro, which has mostly gone to flower. I saw ladybug larvae on the cilantro (Good) but also saw a cluster of tomato-wrecking Leaf-footed stink bug young-uns on a patio plant (Bad). The ladybug larvae are still there, but the stinkbug offspring are departed.

From what I can gather from various sources online, this cute little Shiny Flea Beetle appears to be of Texas origin and seems to specialize in Scuttelaria - the Skullcaps. It seems to be more of a problem in places like Florida, where it is not native... but with 6 kinds of Scuttelaria in this garden, I'd better keep an eye on it. (Looks like friends on the Texas GardenWeb are also seeing these little beetles on their skullcaps.)

(The botanical name of the insect was misspelled on original photo so this was edited with redone photos and added links, May 19, 2013)


There's another type of insect larva that hasn't appeared this year, although I've certainly tried to attract them by growing milkweed in many close-together beds and borders. Maybe the Monarch butterflies skipped my garden this spring because they heard about the Titan School Garden here in Austin!   

More photos and the complete list of what is in bloom with botanical names can be found at Annie's Addendum.

Links to Garden Bloom Day posts from all over can be found at the May Dreams Garden Blog. Happy May Dreams, Carol!

This post, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day May 2013, was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog.

A Chilly January GBBD with Foliage Added

May Dreams Carol started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day in February 2007 and I joined in right away. Sometimes I've skipped a few months and sometimes I put a list on Annie's Addendum without a post. A funny thing happened... taking bloom photos around the 15th of the month has become a habit. Even when there was no post or list on the blog, it's quite likely that I have taken pictures, images stored in a file, ready to inform and remind me what happened that month.

The weather has been chilly for Austin - not unreasonably cold but with enough freezing nights to knock off tender plants. I wasn't sure it was worth going out to take photos yesterday. The inside plants had flowers... wasn't that enough?

In April 2006 I took an out-the-window photo past a potted florist geranium, Pelargonium 'Fantasia Salmon' on the sill. A few months later I started the Transplantable Rose & that geranium has popped up on many a bloom day.


This is the same geranium today - woody but still blooming.

My Divas of the Dirt friend Mindy gave me a cutting from her florist-type Kalanchoe in summer 2009. The cutting took, grew, and has turned into two medium-sized plants. One grows on the windowsill with the geranium and some blooming basil stalks that have rooted in water.

This is the first time the Kalanchoe made buds and I don't know what color the flowers will be - maybe red?

The Andean Silver Sage AKA Salvia discolor didn't do much all summer, but I liked it enough to bring it inside in late November. Since then there have been a few flushes of light bloom... such tiny flowers and quite sticky foliage, but what a wonderful sort of violet-navy color up close.

Mother of Thousands is another kind of Kalanchoe - it's viviparous or live-bearing, with tiny plants forming on the edges of some leaves, ready to drop & start more. The original plant came from my friend Carole about 10-years ago and although it's long gone, there are always a few new plants-in-progress. In places like Florida they can be invasive, but we seem to have enough cold weather to keep them from living too long. One plant growing in the ground outside had reached 7-feet tall at the beginning of December and was in bud, but a freeze hit just as it was ready to bloom. This one was in a clay pot so I could bring it inside to open. 


Well, it was still cold so I aimed the camera out the window at a basket of pansies that don't mind a few freezes.

I could see something red from the window and took the camera outside. Although this 'Pius IX' camellia had no flowers in winter 2010-11 or 2011-12, this winter it formed about 20 buds. A few are open now, and if the weather stays moderate, there are a dozen left. It was an inexpensive 1-gallon shrub in fall 2001, bought as an experiment, to see if it could grow in a deck container at the previous house. After it was planted in this yard in 2005, it hasn't thrived, but it didn't die, and sometimes it blooms.  

The white camellia had a lot of buds - here is one in bloom. Most of the buds fell off - probably not from cold but because worms had blocked up the drainage hole in the container. I don't know if the roots of this 'Morning Glow' can recover.





The shrimp plant is still blooming away in the Secret Garden- happy for the recent rains and standing straighter as the strong winter sun filters through the now-bare branches of the fig tree overhead.

Up close you can see frost damage to the blooms, but if I leave my glasses inside the flowers look pretty good. 

Maybe there are too many photos of Mexican honeysuckle on this blog, but if it's in flower, I can't resist posting them. The leaves are getting pale now - if it gets much colder the top of the plant will freeze off.

 Now for the Foliage Followup.. something started by Pam Penick of the Digging blog for the 16th of the month. 

My Divas of the Dirt friend Mindy has given me many starts of many plants in addition to the ready-to-bloom Kalanchoe above. The other day I photographed a group that had all come from Mindy. The Cuban Oregano was started from cuttings but the Mother of Thousands and yet another kind of Kalanchoe, Donkey Ears/Kalanchoe gastonis-bonnieri came to me as tiny plantlets attached to a leaf edge.
 

 Before the small hypertufa trough came outside for winter it had two of the tiny plantlets attached as you can see in this photo from early December.


Thanks, Mindy!


You can find a complete list of everything I could find with a flower on it, written with my best try at correct botanical names, over at Annie's Addendum, the companion blog to the Transplantable Rose.

If you want to see a camellia growing where it should grow (South Carolina) and looking fabulous, head over to the Tales from the Laboratory blog to see 'Mary Wheeler'.

Carol has a roundup of blog posts for GBBD at her May Dreams Blog - have fun seeing what happens in other gardens and on other windowsills in January.