Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, January 2009

Blooms? A few. But evergreens are what make the winter landscape pleasant. Four years ago this was a garden of bare branches. Now it has some green bones.

The first freeze hit my part of Austin on December 5th, followed by weeks of wildly swinging temperatures: lows of 28 F/2.2 C to highs of 80 F/26.6 C.


When my friend Carole shared divisions of her yellow bulbine last March I never imagined it would still be making buds and blooms in JanuaryWhite oxalis still blooms in the hanging baskets along the veranda
Who could resist bringing home a little viola called 'Tiger Eye'?
The two Champagne mini-roses had a couple of flowers - the leaves have dropped but the red stems are ready to unfold a fresh set
The minute blossoms of Sweet Olive don't make a show but you know they're open when the fragrance wafts your way

The vines couldn't resist the recent warm days so there are almost-open buds on Carolina Jessamine
And several clusters of open flowers on the Coral Honeysuckle.
The Loropetalum/Chinese Witch Hazel is in full bloom for the first time since we planted it in May 2005.
These patriotic primroses are ringers - bought this week and brought inside each night.
This not-yet-planted Passalong daylily from Good & Evil Gardener Lori, is just plain confused!

And so is this fragrant peachy iris
Mexican honeysuckle joined the garden team nearly a year ago but sat on the bench without playing until a few weeks ago.

A few rag-tag blossoms hang on the Salvia greggii near the mailbox. I took their photo then got out the clippers and pruned the twiggy plant back severely, following advice from Linda, the producer of KLRU television's Central Texas Gardener. She writes the CTG garden blog.

The pink rose from the last post had expanded and faded but was still recognizably a rose.


Gift paperwhites that once bloomed inside now flower in the back yard. These small daffodils, labeled as 'Grand Primo', were planted to greet visitors near the veranda steps. .
The also unplanted Dwarf Pomegranate has retained leaves, buds and flowers because it's huddles against the house wall.
A self-seeded Mother of Thousands soared and flowered outside the breakfast room where indoor plants lean toward the panes. On the other side of the wall a smaller, potted Mother-of-Thousands blooms with a cyclamen and the salmon pelargonium on the breakfast room windowshelf.


My grab-bag prize from the Divas of the Dirt Christmas party was a double-budded double-flowered Smith & Hawken amaryllis. One bud is opening 6 individual flowers on a stalk, with the second stalk not yet emerged. The box-store amaryllis at right is developing smaller, single flowers on two stalks at once. We've had frost warnings the last couple of nights so the Mexican Lime and Meyer's Lemon wore their Citrus Ghost costumes - sacks sewn of horticultural thermal fabric with mini-lights aglow within.

Another bloom day, another photo of the Yellow snapdragons, rebudded and undaunted every month since Christmas 2007.A list of what is in bloom today with botanical names is at Annie's Addendum.
Carol of MayDreams Gardens is the inventor of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, held on the 15th of each month. Last weekend, Carol and Bloom Day were featured in an article by Renee Studebaker for the Austin American Statesman. Go to Carol's blog to see what's blooming in other garden today.