Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day-March 2012-So Much!!

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So many blooms, so little time.  What can I say?  There are so many plants blooming in my garden during this abundant spring that I don’t have enough time to talk about all of them.  It’s a problem I’m glad to have.  After a mild, wet winter and an early, wet spring, there are loads of blooming perennials/annuals in the garden.  Thanks to Carole at May Dreams Gardens for hosting  Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day.   Here are a few of the lovelies gracing my little garden:

This Firecracker Plants (Russelia equisetiformis) bloomed  all winter.  Normally a herbaceous perennial in Austin, this year mine remained evergreen.

I have several Prairie Spiderwort (Tradescantia occidentalis) blooming.  A very common spring wildflower and a great pass-a-long plant.   It’s a tough plant and a great early bloomer.

The first Pink Autumn (or Cherry) Sage (Salvia greggii) blooms.  I prune mine to about 8 to 10 inches and they grow to about 2 feet in height and width.  I also have the red and white blooming S. greggii.

And, the still floriferous Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) blooms.  It’s loaded with gorgeous red blooms, just waiting for the hummingbirds to visit.

A German friend gave poppy seeds to me years ago.  I tossed them out and reliably, every spring, these eye-catching beauties bloom.  With the rain this winter and spring, they’re especially prolific.  And HUGE!!  One group is  well over 3 feet tall.

The first Iris to bloom in my gardens this spring.  This is an unknown Iris, given to me by…someone a long time ago.  Every spring, it’s a  hardy and reliable bloomer.

To me, the Yellow Columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha var. hinckleyana) is the harbinger of spring.   In the past, this perennial wouldn’t bloom until mid-March.  Now, it starts about two weeks earlier.

Its relative, the Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), blooms in companionship with the Yellow.

And, since the two species naturally hybridize, I have a number of these perennials shrubs in which the flowers are yellow, with a blush of red.  I love that!

The Crossvine (Bignonia capreolata), is a very well-behaved vine.  I cut mine back a couple of years ago and with the drought and heat last year, it’s made a slow recovery.  But it has plenty of tangerine/yellow blooms this year.

The ubiquitous Mt. Laurel (Sophora secundiflora), has been stunning this year in Austin, including the one in my back garden.  I even saw a magnificent one in Corpus Christi, recently.

And, finally, the Guardian of the Blooms protects the Old Gay Hill Rose and the Globe Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua), from the invading butterflies.

Goofy cat.

Mexican Honeysuckle–Spring Show-Off

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All around Austin these past few weeks,  Mexican Honeysuckle (Justicia spicigera) is strutting its stuff.  Sporting showy clusters of orange flowers, it’s quite a head-turner.

Gardeners grow it here in Austin and it’s a common plant in many parts of the southern United States. Native to Mexico and all the way south to Columbia, it’s naturalized in parts of South Texas.  I remember seeing it in Corpus Christi growing up, although I don’t think my parents grew it in their gardens.  It’s related to the Shrimp plant (Justicia brandegeana), which is also a common South to Central Texas perennial.

Most years, if there’s a deep enough freeze, this fabulous herbaceous perennial dies to the ground and returns from its roots once temperatures warm. Then in mid to late summer,  it begins its bloom cycle.  It will bloom, sporadically, until it succumbs to the next significant freeze. During this mild winter (in Austin) in which there was no  hard freeze (mid-twenties or lower), these gorgeous plants didn’t die to their roots.  Mine suffered slight freeze damage on some of the foliage, but that was all.

My Mexican Honeysuckle began its 2011 bloom cycle last August/September, rested a little during the “winter” months and then started blooming again about six weeks ago. They show no inclination to cease showing off as they brandish their clusters of tubular, orange flowers with abandon.

Mexican Honeysuckle is drought tolerant, but I usually water it once every two weeks during the summer.  During our Summer from Hell of 2011, it didn’t bloom, but it always looked good and I don’t remember it wilting often.  I’ve had no problems with insects or disease –it’s a very easy plant to grow and maintain in the garden.  It’s not too fussy about soil type and it does well in a dappled shade situation.

I saw two Mexican Honeysuckle plants recently on the Hike and Bike trail around Lady Bird Lake in Austin.  They were planted on a terraced hill, with no irrigation (that I could see) in the dappled shade of large trees.  They were blooming profusely!   I probably wouldn’t put this plant in full, blasting Texas sun, because there are better choices and because Mexican Honeysuckle works nicely in a part-shade environment.  It’s reportedly a hummingbird plant and that makes sense given the shape and color of the bloom.  I’ve never seen any hummingbirds feeding at the blooms, though.  And it may well be that the pollinators native to this plant aren’t normally in this geographic area.

In my garden, it’s paired with Purple Heart (Setcreasea pallida) and with Yarrow (Achillea spp.)

I also have it planted with the ‘Nana’ Nandina–you can see how both plants share similar orange/yellow  coloring.  When Mexican Honeysuckle freezes to the ground, it gives the ‘Nana’ a chance to shine.  This year, the ‘Nana’ is peeking around to the right of the Mexican Honeysuckle and isn’t getting much attention.

This one, in the Green Garden at Zilker Botanical Gardens,

receives some direct late morning sun, but is in dappled light for most of the day and  gets water once a week in the summer.  It has the same rangy growth that mine at home has.  I like that.  It adds a softness and casualness that is very appealing.  Mexican Honeysuckle can be pruned back, as needed, and I imagine that I’ll have to tidy both this one and mine at home during the course of this growing season.

Be patient  if you’ve planted Mexican Honeysuckle recently.  It can take a year or so before it demonstrates what a great addition to the garden it is.  Just give it a little room and let it go.  Enjoy!

What Is It About Yellow Flowers?

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They’re just so…yellow.

And bright.

And cheerful.

And, unfortunately, not planted or grown commercially nearly as much as they should be.  The Golden Groundsel (Packera obovata) is a beautiful spring blooming perennial ground cover native to much of North America, including Texas.  It belongs to the Asteraceae (Aster) family of plants,

and is a wonderful addition to a shade or part-shade garden.  It can be planted in a formal setting or as drifts in a woodlands garden.  But in either place, it brightens the late winter/early spring  garden spectacularly.

I first became acquainted with Golden Groundsel just over two years ago, when I noticed a patch of bright yellow  flowers in one of the native woodland areas that I garden at the Green Garden in Zilker Botanical Gardens (ZBG).  That patch absolutely resonated yellow! I recognized the plant because I had read about Golden Groundsel before, although this was the first time I’d actually seen it in a garden.  Most of the year, it’s a ground cover with evergreen, oval and finely serrated leaves.

In January/February (in Austin), it sends forward its bloom stalks.  The slender stems grow to about a foot tall, then burst open with shockingly bright, little flowers.

It colonizes well in ideal conditions and is an easy plant to grow.  Its water requirements are moderate and it fits well in a xeric landscape.  If it gets water once a week in a hot, dry summer, it’ll be just fine.  In the Green Garden,  I moved some Groundsel in late spring of 2010 to this spot,

and while it bloomed last spring, it’s even lovelier this year.  Here, it gets mid-day sun in the summer, with dappled light most of the rest of the day.  It also receives irrigation once per week.  Its companions include Turk’s Cap, Twisted Leaf Yucca, Purple Coneflower and also Columbine.

The two other areas where Golden Groundsel is planted in the Green Garden receive more shade and thus, the plants are not yet blooming.  This group is in a native woodland area which receives very little irrigation.

This second group is planted in the Habitat Garden.  This colony began with six starts, about 15 months ago.  It gets regular (once/week) irrigation and dappled light.  The soil is a bit on the heavy side and you can see how well it’s filled in.

Golden Groundsel is a good nectar source and given that it’s often one of the earliest to bloom, very appreciated by hungry bees and butterflies.  Oddly, it’s blooming a little later this year compared to the last two years.  This is in contrast to so many other plants which are blooming earlier than their normative bloom times.

Golden Groundsel spreads by  roots and by seeds–don’t cut back the flower stalks until the seeds have ripened and dispersed.  It doesn’t seem to spread voraciously by seed though.  My only experience with propagating Groundsel is by root division. When I transplanted the Groundsel at ZBG, I had to be careful about where I dug the plant up from the soil.  Several times I shoved my trowel firmly into the ground, assuming that I was well-underneath a nice root ball, only to realize that the rosette that I was attempting to dig up was connected to another by a runner and there was no root to excavate.  So, if you separate this plant, you must  be sure that the rosette you’re aiming for actually has some root.

When I decided to write about this plant, I called a number of the independent nurseries in and around the Austin area to check for availability and almost no one was familiar with this plant.  Only the nice folks at Barton Springs Nursery  knew anything about Golden Groundsel although they don’t carry it regularly.   I do know that it’s sometimes available at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s plant sale, but I don’t know if they grow it for every sale.

For more information about this great and underused native plant, check out the Central Texas Gardener link–Golden Groundsel was the “Plant of the week” for the  October 1, 2011 program.  Or, as always, you can find information on the page for Golden Groundsel in the Native Plant Database.

I’m going to purchase and plant this lovely perennial for my own garden.  Gardeners should encourage their local nurseries to carry available, but rare, plants.  In turn, growers will begin to produce these plants for retail sales.