Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for December 2010

It's time for the December GBBD -our traditional monthly roundup of what's in flower, started by MayDreams Carol almost four years ago. I took time off from baking and shopping to take a few pictures because December has been pretty nice here in Austin! The photos may show you how different the light is now with most pecan leaves down in back, and with the leaves of the Arizona ash trees in front now turning from green to gold. (Many of the photos will expand if clicked.)

Repeated light freezes have killed off many of the October and November flowers - the Blackfoot daisies and cosmos, the peppers and basil, the mistflowers and moonflowers, the evolvolus and Mexican Mint marigolds, the Blue Butterfly clerodendron, the tips and leaves of 'Pam's Pink' turkscap and all but two species of salvia are done. Most of the view seems green, brown and straw-colored.
The larger showy flowers are gone, but if you go in closer there are small delights scattered over front and back and side gardens. 'Marilyn's Choice' Abutilon lost a few flowers to freezes, but the plant has new buds developing

The Camellia sasanqua 'Shishi Gashira' that was beginning to open a month ago is now reaching the end - but what a show it put on!

The pink camellia was a 1-gallon starter plant in 2005. Next to it is another camellia - a japonica called 'Morning Glow'. It's been in this container just over a year, bought November 2009 all budded and ready to go. 'Morning Glow' is budded again - today opening the first flower of 2010.
Around the corner in the Secret Garden is the shrimp plant seen last month, with even more flowers. I tried to take a photo that would show you where the name came from:

Now back to the patio where the Loquat still blooms against a blue sky
And the Pineapple sage has somehow remained unharmed and in bloom after at least 5 nights with temperatures well below 32°F. The summer flowers are gone from the hanging basket on the patio, along with the coir liner - picked to pieces by birds. To plant these black pansies, I had to improvise with plastic screening and old pieces of artificial pine garland. The Rosemary Birdbath Fountain has two Rosemarys blooming around it.. the upright which blooms whiteAnd the prostrate rosemary which blooms blueOne of the nearby patio containers has a 'Mutabilis' rose - not exactly in bloom, but definitely in bud
In another nearby container a 'Provence' lavender defies the frosts with a few flowers, the tallest wand seen here with the triangle beds and long fence bed in the background. The long fence bed has a few blooms - one bud on the 'Julia Child' roseAnd a trio of colorful blossoms closer to the gate: yellow Salvia madrensis, orange flowers on the fresh green-leaved Mexican Honeysuckle, and more orange from the cuphea, its leaves turned bronze with coldA glance at the Tropical milkweed with blue plumbago at its feet and we're out the gate, walking over to the bright pink Gaura in full bloom and the pink skullcaps with a few flowers brightening the Pink Entrance Garden. The central butterfly bed in front is pretty quiet from the sidewalk side, right now - but from the house side it's very colorful Purple creeping lantana and a few unfrozen Blackfoot daisies combine well with the finally-in-bloom Lion's Tail plant. Here's a closer look at the flowers- it's only marginal in my far NW Austin area so each look may be the last! Let's go to the front door - a couple of plants have flowers inside, too. I've had four plants of Schlumbergera/Holiday cactus for quite awhile. This year the peachy pink one is already in bloom near the dining room window. Two more plants in other colors are budded but the fourth plant is having an off-year. This window gets some light... but no real sun.

Five florist Cyclamen look quite content in a brass planter on the tabletop.
The breakfast room window gets the strongest sun so it's jammed full of overwintering plants. The four-year-old 'Fantasia Salmon' geranium blooms next to a 'Black Pearl' pepper popped out of the triangle bed before the first frost a couple of weeks ago. Mother of Thousands, a plant in the Kalanchoe family, grows in pots on the patio for summer. The bigger plants often freeze and die but a few babies live over to keep the strain going. If a plant has buds it gets a space inside before the first frost Here's this year's winner of the Bay Window lottery.

Carol's post and links to many garden blogs is found here at the May Dreams garden Blog.

Better get back to baking... some day the complete list of what's in bloom (with botanical names) will appear on Annie's Addendum. Hope your December is going well!

Edited Dec 19 - List of all in bloom in December is up on Annie's Addendum.

Blooms of Late December

On the official bloomingday the 15th of December, the word wasn't Flower but Flour - it makes me happy to send a few homemade cookies with the Christmas presents to our families. Last week's chilly weather also put me in the mood to stay close to the warm oven and use old favorite recipes while watching vintage movies like Casablanca and Heaven Knows, Mr Allison. World War 2 movies somehow connect to Christmas holidays from childhood - maybe that's what played on TV during those weeks off from school?

Today those packages have reached their destinations, we're almost ready for Christmas and who needs the oven to keep warm when the thermometer reads 69F?

Time for the Solstice T-shirt designed by my son, a few garden tools and a camera



I'd found ranunculus bulbs in a bargain bin on a recent trip to the big box hardware. I'd already planted bags of mixed colors, but these were pink and destined for the Pink Entrance Garden. The chart on the package showed planting in zone 8 as October to December, giving me just a few more days to get them into the ground. My new Diamond Hoe was still shiny and unused - trying it out was a good reason to go outside. Soon the bulbs were planted and the diamond hoe worked exactly the way it was supposed to in the parking strip.

Instead of another session with the leaf rake, I'd rather take notice of the flowers today. After a couple of freezes the survivors are the tiny flowers - white oxalis buried in pecan leaves
Creeping phlox in the front bed
Deep rose Gaura unstoppable in the Pink entrance garden
Seedlings of cilantro and larkspur sprouting near starts of Lunaria
Cold changed the roses- magenta tones appeared on the buds of the Mutabilis rose
Cold deepened the pink of 'Belinda's Dream'
and turned 'Julia Child' buds from butter yellow to orange sherbet

The coral honeysuckle still holds on to old leaves turned yellow even as new leaves and buds unfold. The hummingbirds are long gone - they'll never sip from these flowers and the goldfinches aren't interested in nectar.
The floweriest part of the garden is on the north side of the shed
The stems of the paperwhites Narcissus flopped down in the cold, but most of the individual blossoms remain intact
Only a few flowers of Camellia sasanqua 'Shishi Gashira' are left to drop rosy petals
But the new Camellia japonica 'Morning Glow' is just now beginning to bloom - two flowers are open today.

How odd to live in a place where something like this blooms for Christmas!
However you celebrate, Dear Friends, may your days be merry and bright.

Annie

Another Gift for the Garden

Y'all are going to think all we do is shop - but like last Saturday's rain barrel, this week's purchase was also a response to summer's toll. A year ago the peach tree so badly sited by a previous owner was still alive - growing at an angle, non-fruiting and smack under the shade of two pecan trees - but alive.We watched it decline and die inch by inch this summer and by the end of October knew it had to come down. Even before the saw came out of the shed, I'd decided on a replacement.


The Camellia sasanqua 'Shishi Gashira' which is planted next to the shed has done well with a minimum of watering, even through record-breaking heat. Two weeks ago I saw a white-flowered Camellia japonica 'Morning Glow' with a dozen buds and I bought it. The price was less expensive than a bouquet of flowers and I want to see what the flowers look like when they open. The plant should like to grow where the pecan trees add shade in summer with the shed wall to block intense, low winter sun. Philippine violets do well here and so do Oxblood lilies, paperwhites and small daffodils like this unnamed paperwhite above that opened over the weekend.

The trunk came down but the peach roots will take a long time to disintegrate. After the Arizona Ash was removed from the front yard in 2007, we helped the process along by piling on mulch & compost after the stump was ground and sinking container plants on top of the mulch. The water, fertilizer and compost that seeped through seemed to help the roots decompose more quickly. We'll see if a container and mulch will work on peach roots, too.

The shopping word in the plan was "container" - off to the nearby Countryside Nursery we went, in search of an attractive pot to hold the camellia. Countryside carries an assortment of natural and organic products like Medina and Cottonbur Compost. We buy plants there - it's where I found the 'Julia Child' rose you've seen in bud and bloom. And we buy pots there, like the big blue pot in the secret garden - still full of dark purple potato vine as winter approaches.Out on the lot we chose a slightly smaller version of the blue pot, liking it even more after Philo brought it up to the counter and the sale price was 20% off the label. I found more treasure inside the building. Every year I remind myself to order Hyacinthoides hispanica, so I can try to copy the Spanish Bluebell display at Zanthan Gardens. But once again I didn't order any - what a lucky break to find Spanish Bluebell bulbs on the rack at Countryside!

Back home I found a black plastic nursery pot of the right size. Philo sawed off the top few inches so it could fit inside the ceramic pot as a liner. That should make it easier when it's time to transplant the camellia into the ground. As always, I cut pieces of roll window screen to cover the holes in both ceramic pot and plastic inner pot. John Dromgoole says the screen helps keep ant colonies and pillbugs from invading containers. I removed the camellia from its starter pot and planted it with Lady Bug Brand Rose Magic soil mixed with extra peat, watering it in with Maxicrop Seaweed w/Iron. ( Products are named not because anyone is paying me but because my blogs have replaced my memory. If this idea works the names will remind me exactly how it was done.) I hope the Camellia buds open white as promised and I hope the plant can live and grow in the pot for a couple of years. By then the roots may be rotted and the ground mellowed enough to be ready to receive it. Then will come the fun of thinking up something new to plant in the blue-green pot.