Bloom Day, June 2015

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Tina

Thanking Carol at May Dreams Gardens for the opportunity to share blooms, I’m joining in with a few of my own June picks and pics! May was a wet month in my garden–17 inches wet–and many of my plants have enjoyed foliage growth, but are lagging behind in flower production.

Additionally, this week of June 15–21 is Pollinator Week, which is promoted by Pollinator Partnership, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to the advocation and protection of pollinators. Pollinators of all sorts–bees, butterflies, moths, bats and birds–are required for much of our food production and are vital to a healthy ecosystem. Of course home gardeners know this and those of us who honor blooms are keenly aware of the synchronicity of those blooms and their pollinators.

This Horsefly-like Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa tabaniformis, is a common visitor to my gardens.

Here, she contentedly works the bloom of a Engelmann or Cutleaf Daisy, Engelmannia peristenia. Most of the blooms in my gardens attract something in the pollinator category–whether I get it in photo form, or not.

Heartleaf Skullcap, Scutellaria ovata, a great friend to the above bee species, maintains its grey-blue garden invasion, though it’s past its blooming peak for this year.

It combines well with other blooming perennials, including Turk’s Cap, Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii.

Turk’s Cap has grown tall and the foliage is lush. The flowers are finally appearing in great numbers–tardy for this long-flowering native shrub.

I’m so glad it’s blooming and I’m sure the hummingbirds are too.

Coral Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, are gracing the garden with a second flush of tubular beauty on this hardy vine.

With lots of rose action for this June Bloom Day, the Knock-Out rose delivers its usual stellar standards of bloom quality.

Subtler blooms open on the old Jackson and Perkins pretty-in-pink, Simplicity rose.

There are two Simplicity shrubs remaining from the seven planted before I moved into this house in 1985. Tough and beautiful roses, I thank the former owners for their choice. While I’ve never observed native bees at either of these two rose plants, honeybees, butterflies, and moths are frequent visitors.

Continuing the pink parade are the blooms of the Red Yucca, Hesperaloe parviflora, flower stalks, which are not red at all,

… and Rock Rose, Pavonia lasiopetala,

… and Winecup, Callirhoe involucrata,

…and Four O’Clocks, Mirabilis jalapa,

…and the pink-to-my eyes, Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea.

Coneflowers are convivial and play nicely with everyone in the garden. They are constantly friended by a variety of butterflies, like this skipper.

…and make good garden buddies to many other plants, like lavender.

I wish I could remember the name of the lavender variety. It’s a wise gardener who keeps plant labels. Alas, I’m not always a wise gardener and sometimes lose my labels to the jumble of my supply and equipment shelves–or to the compost pile. The lavender variety that grows in my garden accepts the twists-n-turns of Central Texas’ extremes of drought-n-flood.

Shaking up the pink and adding some orange crush to the garden is the unknown passalong variety of daylily blooms that are now unfurling their glory each morning.

Welcome to summer!

What gorgeous flowers do you have in the garden this June? Please share and then pop over to May Dreams Gardens for a look at blooms from around the world. And if you don’t have flowers that attract a variety of pollinators, check out your local nursery and purchase some plants or seeds–herbicide and pesticide free–to give pollinators a place to thrive.

Bloom Day, April 2015

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Tina

Welcome to the April edition of Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, hosted by Carol of May Dreams Gardens. There are so many blooms in my April garden and so little time to profile all of the flowers, so I’ll focus on a few, mostly native Texas lovelies.

The purples have taken control of my gardens–holding the garden hostage with their beauty. Included in the violet-hued blooming coup are several varieties of non-native Iris and native Texas perennial wildflowers.

I have scads of Spiderwort, Tradescantia, ssp. clumps which have spread willy-nilly throughout my beds. They vary in size, color, and petal form, but all are pretty in purple and pollinator-attracting.

A relative of the Spiderwort, this dainty False Dayflower, Tinantia anomala, displays a delicate spring lilac.

It’s a nice companion to the Spiderwort and like its taller kin, was a surprise gift in my garden.

Cedar Sage, Salvia roemeriana, is a blast of red-hot gorgeousness in spring and is flowering a bit earlier than typical for this shade-loving perennial.

It’s certainly no shrinking salvia in the garden.

This darling Blue-eyed Grass, Sisyrinchium chilense, popped up in a crack in my patio and is blooming along just fine in its mortar mulch.

I’m only guessing at this identification–I didn’t buy it in either seed or container plant form. It’s definitely a blue-eyed beauty, though.

Native Texas Columbines are spring favorites. The Yellow Columbine, Aquilegia chrysantha var. hinckleyana,

…and the smaller, less flamboyant Wild Red Columbine, A. canadensis,

…and the natural hybrids of the two that occur when both are planted together over the course of a few seasons.

I love ’em all!

Lyreleaf Sage, Salvia lyrata, is at the peak of its beautiful spring blue flower spikes. Or is the color purple? Or maybe more of a lavender? Whatever it is, it’s welcome in my garden.

Lyreleaf Sage is a good choice for a shade-tolerant ground cover and is attractive year-round.

Coral Honeysuckle vine, Lonicera sempervirens, is a blooming monstrosity!

But no one can doubt the beauty and pollinator zing it adds to a garden

Hill Country Penstemon, Penstemon triflorus, stands as s a fuchsia sentinel in my early and mid-spring garden.

This one is perhaps a hybrid between the P. triflorus and P. cobaea. The tag at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center was labeled P. triflorus, but it’s never quite looked like my others. It sports larger blooms and foliage in an overall taller plant, plus the coloring is variegated.

Nonetheless, like my other Hill Country Penstemon plants, I appreciate its good looks, long flowering time, and purpose as an excellent pollinator plant.

Not native to Central Texas but instead, to West Texas and New Mexico is the Globe Mallow, Sphaeralcea ambigua.

Hot, dry, and sunny makes this mallow happy and I’m glad I have ONE spot that it’s happy in. Doesn’t it look happy to you?

Happy April GBBD–check out other gorgeous April bloom happenings at May Dreams Gardens.

Bloom Day, March 2015

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Tina

March is here, blooms are here and Northern Hemisphere gardeners are grateful that winter is (for the most part) taking a hike. Done and done with winter 2014-15! Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Garden for hosting this monthly musing on blooms.

There’s not a lot of flower power wowing my Austin, Texas gardens for this bloom day, but what is blooming is very, very welcome and the yellows currently rule.

Carolina Jessamine, Gelsemium sempervirens, is a new vine for me and it’s making its presence known.

For now, it’s hiding behind a White Mistflower, Ageratina havanensis, because the vine is small and not yet grown to its height and width.

By this time next year it will crown the Mistflower shrub, full of early spring sunshine-bright blooms as it clings to its trellis.

Golden Groundsel, Packera obovata, is another ray of cheer gracing my March garden.

This Columbine,

…is a hybrid of the natives Aquilegia chrysantha and Aquilegia canadensis, both of which grow in my gardens. This lovely displays the blush of pink in the sepals and spurs common to hybrids, rather than the purity of yellow seen in A. chrysantha (Hinckley) or the brick-red and yellow combination of A. canadensis.

For me, the blooming columbines, no matter what their color, herald spring’s arrival.

Coral Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, is a tough Texas plant with eye-popping blooms.

This vine blossoms for much of the growing season, but March through June it drips with coral-red clusters.

Rosa ‘Martha Gonzales’ Rose, unfolded its first brilliant red-pink bloom this week–there will be plenty more of the same throughout the year.

And the Rosa, ‘Mutabilis’ issued an invitation for pollinators to visit.

I find this rose blooms beautifully throughout spring, sometimes in fall and in mild winters, but not so during our long, hot summer. Year-round though it offers cover and refuge for the various finches and wrens, as well as the Cardinals, so I’m happy to keep it in the back of the garden.