May Flowers

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Tina

Early spring blooms are a thing of the past, and summer, with its accompanying hot-tempered blooms, is knocking at the door. May brings rains–typically our wettest month here in Central Texas, zone 8b–but also the warm breath of summer breezes. With added humidity, summer’s sauna is about to begin. Even so, the days are pleasant and blooms that love the heat will soon be stars of the garden.

Purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, are in their prime and open for pollinators to sip from and gardeners to delight in. I spotted this Crab Spider waiting for a meal on an open coneflower bloom. The honeybees are fond of coneflowers, but I imagine it was a fly, syrphid fly, or small native bee that the crab was hoping for. Honeybees are a tad big for this little thing, though crab spiders are successful predators.

It skedaddled as I was shooting the photo. Notice the bit of webbing attached to the central disk of the flower: no doubt, some meal will become ensnared in that.

Sun shines in the sky, coneflowers sparkle in the garden.

Little coneflowers, all in a row, though it’s not the straightest of rows.

Another late spring/early summer native that has hit its stride, is the perennial Heartleaf skullcap, Scuttelaria ovata. The small, violet blue blooms are borne along flower spikes. They complement the grey-green, fuzzy foliage.

A step back reveals a contrast between the bright green foliage of a neighbor plant, Drummond’s ruellia, Ruellia drummondiana, and the subdued tinge of the Heartleaf’s foliage. The tiny blooms are charming accents.

In late autumn, Heartleaf skullcap emerges in drifts in my garden, filling spaces and buddying up to other perennials and evergreen plants. It acts as an evergreen during winter, keeping the garden full and lush. Once blooming commences in April, the summer perennials are up and running, preparing to take over the garden show. Heartleaf skullcap pairs well with all the plants in my garden.

Heartleaf foliage is fetching and in a wide shot of the garden, they’re the primary attraction of the plant. But the flowers are visible–dots of lavender blue setting off the foliage–and the bees, native and honey, take notice. The blooms are popular among that crowd.

White flowers are refreshing and none more than those of Yarrow, Achillea millefolium. Feathery foliage pairs with these flat-topped clusters of tiny florets, just right for the smaller pollinators to work around. On this day, at this time, a fly works the blooms.

I transplanted this group of yarrow last autumn from a different part of my garden. They adjusted well and haven’t missed a beat in their blooming!

Red yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora, a member of the Agave family, sends up graceful stalks in spring, loaded with salmon-n-butter blooms, to the delight of of hummingbirds, native bees, and butterflies.

Oh yeah, this gardener loves Red yuccas, too!

The stalks grow 4-5 feet tall, seemingly overnight, emerging in March/early April from an evergreen base of succulent-like leaves. The flowers that blossom along the stalk strut their blooming stuff all summer and through autumn, making this plant a must-have for gardeners, especially those who plant for pollinators.

Do you see the webbing toward the top of this bloom stalk? Looks like our friend the crab spider (or one of its friends) set up shop for a go-to meal. I prefer not to witness an entangle bee or butterfly, but that’s part of a balanced garden life.

On another, shorter bloom stalk of a different individual Red yucca, the stalk divided itself into three distinct sections, each allowing for the open blooms to face a different direction.

Soon, I expect that the hummingbirds will find these luscious blooms. I’ll enjoy observing their meals and the territorial battles that will ensue.

May blooms: no longer quite spring, but also, not yet summer. May is a nice bridge of blooming from cool season flowers to hot Texas summer blooms.

Joining with Carol in celebration of all things blooming, please pop over to her May Dreams Garden to see blooms from many places for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day.

Splayed and Twisted

Posted on April 14, 2020 by Tina

Splayed and twisted describes so much of life at the moment, but in the garden, splayed and twisted are often normal happenings.

The scarlet and gold fluted flowers of Coral honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, span outwards and downwards, trumpeting their beauty and wildlife value. Each await visits from their pollinator partners.

Some of the cheekier visitors steal nectar, rather than fulfilling pollinator expectations.

Nevertheless, I’m certain that eventually native bees, butterflies, moths, or birds will happen by to sip the good stuff from the tubular openings and carry pollen grains to parts unknown.

I grow several Red yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora, plants and all are pushing up their bloom stalks, daily and at a rapid pace, for this season’s bloom show. This one is reaching for the clouds, but hampered by its twisted ways.

Just beginning its push skyward, the curvy anomaly, known as fasciation, has kicked in. It’s unknown why stems occasionally go wavy-gravy or flowers turn into two-headed floral freaks, but it happens. It’s not a big deal in the plant world, because fasciation isn’t generally indicative of a spreading disease event or a genetically inferior plant. When the weird wonder occurs in the garden on a stem or flower head, it’s easily remedied by pruning out the botanical boo-boo. Or the gardener may leave it, as an acknowledgement of life’s vicissitudes.

I don’t plan to prune this stalk because even if it doesn’t grow-up straight or arched like its sibling stalks, pollinators (with the possible exception of hummingbirds) will find the flowers. Aside from Red yucca’s beauty to my eyes, the attraction to pollinators is the reason these perennials have a place in my garden.

The curvy one’s neighbor, an offshoot of the same mother plant, has grown about 4 feet tall. Single blooms, arrayed along the stalk, will soon open.

In a different part of the garden, another of the same species is bursting at its petals with salmon-hued goodness, ready for the winged-things to feed from.

The garden provides surprises, mostly good, always fascinating.

I’m joining in with Anna for Wednesday Vignette, check out her lovely Flutter and Hum for garden stories–the funny, the weird, the wonderful. Also, it’s April Bloom Day! So Carol’s gorgeous May Dreams Garden celebrates blooms –pop over to enjoy blooms from many places.

September Song

Posted on September 23, 2019 by Tina

With thanks to Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson for this lovely bit of poetry and to

Sarah Vaughn and Willie Nelson (as a fellow Texan, I must include his version) for interpreting the words so beautifully.

Oh, it’s a long, long while
from May to December,
But the days grow short
when you reach September.

Indeed the days have grown noticeably shorter–not cooler, though. The cool will come, as will the wet, but patience here in Central Texas for those particular autumnal qualities is still the order of business as heat lingers and summer blooms continue, though autumn is arrived.

Toward the end of its summer show, at least in my garden, is Pride of Barbados, Caesalpinia pulcherrima.

I’ve certainly enjoyed the brash and bold blooms these past couple of months, as have a variety of pollinators. Honeybees, several species of native bees, butterflies, moths, and wasps all partake of these gorgeous hot beauties. In spots around town where this riot of orange and yellow grow in full sun, the plants remain in full blooming mode. Mine has blooms, but fewer each week.

On a subdued side of the garden is sweet little Pigeonberry, Rivina humilis. A small, tough native ground cover, its blooming begins mid-summer and lasts until chill sets in–whenever that may be.

This particular plant has tiny white flowerets on small bloom stalks, but typically, Pigeonberry blooms are pink. In the shot below the flowers, spent flowers, and ripe, red berries all share space. An extra pretty feature of this plant are its ruffly leaves–swoon!

In October and November, there will be fewer flowers and more berries. And yes, pigeons do eat the berries, as do doves and blue jays.

Dainty comes to my mind when I look at Pigeonberry.

My mature individual Red Yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora usually send up four to eight bloom stalks, each about 5 feet high. In the past, I’ve noticed that heavy rain during that brief window of time when the bloom stalks make their appearance limit both the number and sizes of the stalks. Just that kind of rain pattern was in place this past spring at that particular time and as a result, every Red yucca I grow sent up one–and only one–stalk. All were shorter than normal. I’ve missed the drama of multiple stalks decorated at their terminal ends with lovely salmon-n-gold blooms, but each individual stalk fulfilled its duty and produced flowers all summer.

This is one of the last of the season, in full pinky glory and accepting visits from hummingbirds and other pollinators.

It took a long while before I found the right spot in my garden for a Firebush, Hamelia patens. Poor thing, I must have transplanted it at least four times. A sun-lover, this plant is happiest where it’s hottest and sunniest.

That one best Firebush spot is located at the side of my house, in a narrow strip that no one visits or sees, except for the pollinators and myself. The tubular flowers are red, tinged orange, and borne in terminal clusters.

Horsefly-like Carpenter bee (Xylocopa tabaniformis) sipping nectar.

The occasional predator also hangs out, waiting for a meal, looking cute all the while.

Here you see the Hamelia paired with another hardy heat-lover, Flame Acanthus, Anisacanthus quadrifidus var. wrightii, situated at the far left and toward the back of the photo. Both of these plants are native to Texas.

I wish my garden supported a better stage to showcase both the Firebush and the Flame Acanthus because they’re gorgeous summer-to-autumn bloomers, water-wise shrubs, and good sources of food and cover for a variety of critters.

Like the Firebush, Flame Acanthus sports tubular blooms, but grows from a woodier shrub and is accented with small, slender leaves. Its white bark is attractive, especially after a hard freeze with resulting dropped foliage. It’s a winning garden addition year-round.

You can bet that hummingbirds make a bee-line for these blooms, too.

Dwarf Mexican Petunia, Ruellia brittoniana ‘Katie’ is yet another hot weather bloomer, most years flowering from July to October. A tidy little plant and perfect for the front of a border, the flowers present themselves as a bouquet. While not evergreen, the plant only dies to the ground during very hard or prolonged freezes; in our milder winters, the foliage remains. The foliage is dark green and graceful, complementing the rich purple flowers. In the photo, The ‘Katie’s’ striped companion is foliage from Variegated Flax Lily, Dianella tasmanica ‘Variegata’.

Can’t you just imagine a bride hold this as she marries her beloved?

Another ruellia in my garden is one in which I hold mixed feelings for. The Pink Ruellia, Ruellia brittoniana ‘Chi Chi’ is another easy-to-grow, hardy plant flowering during our most difficult time of the year and I appreciate that.

The blooms are obviously similar to the ‘Katie’s’ Dwarf Ruellia, color notwithstanding. The foliage is similar, too, but the plant is much taller. This year, the ‘Chi Chi’ have grown nearly four feet high due to the heavy, prolonged rain of the spring months. Pollinators, especially bees, visit the flowers constantly, making the it one of the better pollinator plants in my garden during August and September.

But ‘Chi Chi’ is invasive and I must keep the two groups of this plant in check, otherwise ‘Chi Chi’ would run rampant. I don’t find seedlings all over the place, but they pop up close to where the main groups grow and ‘Chi Chi’ desires insidious expansion of boundaries.

Nope, not gonna happen, Ms. Chi Chi. But you are pretty, I’ll give you that and I’ll keep you around as long as I can exercise a modicum of control over you.

Leadwort Plumbago, Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, is a meandering cutey that I forget about, until those sky-blue flowers grab my attention.

Leadwort plumbago, with cheery blooms and lush foliage, hugs the ground closely and wends its way around other perennials. This plant would probably like more sun, but nevertheless blooms during the latter part of summer and that’s why I grow it.

I once thought that, while the flowers were pretty, they didn’t attract any pollinators. Happily, I’ve discovered otherwise! I wasn’t fast enough with the camera, but just as I took this shot, a tiny native bee zoomed off from its mucking around in the middle of the bloom. I like plants which serve a purpose other than pleasing me.

The next two plants I profiled in previous Monthly Blooms posts, but are well worth another visit as they’re still blooming, still providing for wildlife, and still making the garden a good place to be. The Turk’s cap, Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii, is chock full of hibiscus-like crimson blooms.

Pollinators love Turk’s cap.

As the season heads the end of its blooming time, Turk’s cap flowers share space with developing fruits, adored by a variety of birds like Blue Jays and Mockingbirds.

The Branched Foldwing, Dicliptera brachiata started blooming last month, but has hit its stride in September. Sprinkled all over the diminutive shrub are elegant lavender beauties. It’s not a showy plant and the flowers require a close-up for full appreciation.

Branch Foldwing appears delicate, but it shrugs off our heat and dry conditions, always looking its best.

Happy fall, y’all! September has delivered some nice things for my garden and I hope to yours as well. Hang in there Texans–it is autumn and time to kick summer to the curb.