Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, June 2009

Welcome to Garden Blogger Bloom Day the monthly Floral Circus presided over by May Dreams Carol. Guess it's time to take a break from writing about what the Divas of the Dirt have been up to lately and write about what's in bloom at Circus~Cercis. Holding our GBBD meetings on the 15th of the month didn't work out for a few flowers - the White Delphinium ignored the calendar and bloomed for two weeks around the 1st of the month.

You missed 'Best of Friends' when it was at its prettiest - this photo is from May 24th. This pretty passalong daylily from Pam/Digging still opens flowers, but when temperatures graze 100°F every day, the flower color is paler.
You totally missed my new 'Devonshire' daylily bought at the Austin Hemerocallis Show and Sale. It had three stalks, each with lots of buds but they finished last week.


You've arrived just in time for the native Flame Acanthus blooming near the front door - another passalong from Pam/Digging.
At the end of the veranda these Blue Balloonflowers don't look too stressed yet... this is Platycodon grandiflora, carried to Texas from Illinois as tiny seedlings.
Cross the drive to the Pink Entrance Bed and see the first Coneflowers of the year- these are Echinacea 'Purple Stars', with natives pink gaura, Red yucca and pink skullcap, Mexican oregano, white trailing lantana, more balloonflowers and...one of the purple larkspurs which usually reseed in spring. In April 2008 they bloomed at 6' tall - this year only a few larkspur sprouted to bloom now.
In this border the Balloonflowers are Platycodon 'Miss Tilly'
Let's go see what's blooming inside the fence now - tropical milkweed in orange

It took the 'Acoma' crepe myrtles three years to reach the level of the fence - they look established now! That's a plumeria at left - no flowers but it has buds.
Down at ground level near the right crepe myrtle these passalong crocsmia from blogger MarthaChick are also in bud, rather than bloom. I let at least one of the wild sunflowers grow every summer on the edge of the vegetable garden. It doesn't seem to bother the tomatoes and peppers growing in the little garden behind it and shouldn't sunflower seeds for goldfinches count as a crop? .

The tomato crop isn't large but there are lots of 'Juliet' grape tomatoes and enough 'Early Girls' and 'Carmellos' so that one is ripe in time for dinner every day. I didn't plant the pattypan - it's one of those lasagna-composting bonuses from a chunk of squash added last fall. We've had two so far. The native coral honeysuckle has recovered from pruning and had begun a new bloom cycle.


Look at the shape of those flowers - no wonder the hummingbirds visit them.
The hummingbirds like the Salvia coccinea in the center of the back yard, too - that blur is a hummingbird and that lavender flower in the corner is another confused larkspur.
Sometimes the best color in an Austin heatwave is no color at all... it's White 'Fuji' balloonflowers and white coneflowers with silver gray Lambs Ears, a passalong from my friend Carole.
The color can be a surprise White Calla lily from a clump that hasn't bloomed in a few yearsIt's the White of the fragrant white abelia and the fluffy white crepe myrtles.



But my favorite is still White sails of the Blue River II Hibiscus, another plant carried from Illinois


The hibiscus reminds me of something else that slipped by in the last couple of weeks - my first blog post on June 7, 2006 was about them. These past three years of blogging have been great fun - thanks to all of you, especially MSS of Zanthan Gardens and Pam/Digging, the first garden bloggers I met and my inspirations from the beginning.

Carol will have links to all the GBBD participants and as usual, the list of all plants in bloom with my closest guesses at their proper botanical names can be found at Annie's Addendum.