Joining garden bloggers from around the world, here are my picks for Bloom Day, April 2014 from Austin, Texas. The Hill Country Penstemon (Penstemon triflorus), thrust upward its bloom stalks during January, but waited until March to unfurl its fuchsia beauty.
My Spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis) has bloomed this past month and shows no signs of slowing down, much to the delight of the honeybees.
The ‘Brazos’ Blackberry is in full flower now, with berries to follow. I can’t wait to eat the berries from the vine in May and June.
A beautiful cool season bloomer here in Austin is the Globe Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua).
And there are lots of Columbine this spring. The Hinckley (or Yellow) Columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha var. hinckleyana) is in full glory.
Blooming alongside another native Columbine, the Wild Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis),
these two will rampantly hybridize to create lovely variations of themselves over several seasons.
Lastly, the Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) blooms are opening daily.
Happy Spring!
And thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day.
My Gardener Says... 
Gorgeous! I particularly like the wide-angle shots showing the layers of beautiful blooms. Penstemons and blackberry are both on my garden wishlist. All those Columbines are lovely, too!
You helped me a year or two ago with my anxieties when I first planted Martha Gonzales roses. Thank you for that! They’re blooming happily now. 🙂
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Hi Mary! Thanks so much–there’s lots to pick from right now, everything is so lovely. I’m so glad about the Martha Gonzales roses!! They’re real winners, aren’t they? Enjoy!
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Oh wow! Your garden looks so good. Of course I’m jealous as usual of the columbine since I don’t have a good spot for them. I just added Hill Country Penstemon this spring and can’t get enough of that color.
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Hi Shirley! I’m glad to share the columbine–they’ve been so pretty this year. You’ll love the Penstemon–I look forward to it every year and it has a fairly long bloom time, so that’s a bonus.
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Your garden is lovely! I’m jealous of the penstemon and globe mallow, but not deer resistant, argh
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Thank you, Laura. Yeah, it’s a drag when you like something, but so do the deer. I’m lucky, that’s one issue I don’t have to contend with.
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Your columbine are so gorgeous – it is fun to see how they blend forms once established in proximity. They seem to be wanting to show up the crossvine, colorwise. I’m currently frustrated with deer decimation of my penstemon out front (they’ve chomped my Indian paintbrush, some Betony and several other local would-be beauties as well). The herds here sort of rotate through an area, chomp and then move elsewhere for a while, so I’m hopeful whatever survives will get a chance to bloom again soon. In the meantime I’ll drop in here and enjoy your (deer free) spaces. Thanks!
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Those damn deer! I’m so sorry that you’re having to deal with that. I do have a dog who’ll cruise through the garden and in fact, broke one of the bloom spikes on one of my Hill Country Penstemon–not happy with him at that time! The columbine have behaved very nicely in my gardens–I can’t really take credit for that as they’re just doing their thing.
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A great post. I love your Penstemon. And how interesting that Aquilegia chrysantha and Aqilegia canadensis will hybridise. I had no idea about this. I’m going to plant some near together now and see what I get.
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Thank you, Chloris. There are several Penstemon common to central Texas and they’re all so lovely–some of my absolute favorite perennials. Yes, it’s fun to get the different combinations of columbine–mine have bloomed so beautifully this year; I guess the conditions have been just right!
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