A surprisingly Pleasant, Rainy GBBD for July, 2013

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.  

Rain is a big deal here, and it rained today! I watched through the kitchen window as the rain ran down the chain into the barrel and then stood on the front porch listening to the welcome sound. Instead of dust we had raindrops. Instead of the 104°F of Saturday afternoon, temperatures on Monday afternoon never broke 80°F.
 
The chance to make a Garden Blogger Bloom Day post featuring petals and leaves dampened by raindrops doesn't come along very often! I caught a few photos, mostly of plants near the house, and mostly of flowers with petals that hadn't disintegrated to mush in the rain.

There are two more rain chains directing water into the very important, long back wall border. This very desirable morning-sun, afternoon-shade spot is jammed full with Blue Plumbago, Tropical Milkweed, a Meyer's Lemon, a Satsuma orange, 'Carmen' peppers, a climbing rose, Grandma's phlox, Blue Butterfly Clerodendron, Pink cuphea, Burgundy oxalis, black Ophiopogon, Coreopsis 'Crème Brulee', three passalong daylilies and more, in the rain. 

 
Some years ago a couple of bulbs of Amarcrinum were given positions in this special, long border - the fragrant pink flowers appeared in the last post and even more flower stalks are up now. Here is  x Amarcrinum 'Fred Howard' in the rain. 

Over by the garden gate the Cenizo/Texas Sage had popped into bloom

Across from the Cenizo a daylily that had bloomed a while ago is surprising me. It appears that the developing bloom stalk stalled and shut down when we started seeing temperatures over 100°F. Now the stalk has extended and the buds are swelling, long after the other flowers faded. Here is Hemerocallis 'Devonshire' in the rain.


Behind the daylily are a Firecracker plant and a creamy white Salvia greggii. Let's take a closer look. 

The daylily, Firecracker plant and salvia have all been here for years, but on the other side of the daylily is a more recent addition, Asclepias currasivica 'Silky Gold'. This all-yellow selection of tropical milkweed seems to be settling in well and it sure does look pretty in the rain. 

Closer to the back fence a young 'Catawba' crepe myrtle bows down with the weight of water-logged blossoms. This tree is only shrub-sized right now, but it has the potential to transform this part of the garden as it grows into a tree.



Blasting afternoon sun combined with deep morning shade and a very dry winter is not the recipe for happy Phlox, but some handwatering and compost helped this Fanick's phlox in the pink entrance garden survive to make a few flowers. I was afraid I had lost this plant so am very happy to take a photo of it in the rain. 

There are a couple of beds in the garden that usually bloom with red, white & blue flowers around  Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. Those beds did not deliver this year, but a large patio container is displaying patriotic colors today. Here's a white Datura AKA Angel's Trumpet, with blue-violet petunias, white hummingbird sage and red hummingbird sage, in the rain.


So far my rain gauge has measured a little over 2" - there's been much more in some parts of Central Texas and much less in other parts of Austin. You may be tired of reading that little phrase, "In the Rain", but I'm sure not tired of saying it.

Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and keeps the links for all who want to be part of this pleasant tradition. This is her July post.


If I can get a complete list of what's in bloom along with the botanical names, it will appear at Annie's Addendum.  
(That list is now up, with a few more photos)
This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog. 

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day May 2013

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog.

The May garden has few surprises, but unexpectedly cool nights, days under 90°F  and some rain in the last month have made the garden look greener than usual. Funny thing - although the rain wasn't heavy enough to refill the reservoirs and it didn't sink deep enough for the trees and shrubs, there was enough near the surface to pump up the grass paths around the Trapezoid Walk.

In other years the daylilies have been in full swing by mid-May. In this odd year, the passalong dwarf daylily 'Vi's Apricot' has some flowers - here mingling with the annual larkspur:

 Another passalong, the Orange Daylily/Ditch Lily from Gardener of Good & Evil, has bloomed with more larkspur, a patch of Salvia farinacea started with shared plants from Rock Rose, and a brand new 'Silky Yellow' tropical Milkweed from The Natural Gardener...

 Other varieties like the 'Best of Friends' from Pam at Digging have made buds but none are open yet. Our weather is now changing from damp to dry with temperatures soaring up into the 90's F - sure hope all these buds won't be blasted!

Seedlings from the annual larkspur turn up all over the garden each year in late winter. Some seedlings are weeded out - many are left to bloom in the spots they have chosen - larkspur popped up with the Oakleaf Hydrangea. This variety is 'Snow Queen' and the plant is in bloom for the third spring in a row.

  
Salvia coccinea, Hummingbird sage, also seeds around. I planted the lavender but these Hummingbird sages not only planted themselves - they've selected their own color scheme. Behind the scrim of salvias and lavender you can glimpse the climbing mini-rose, 'Red Cascade'.

Also self-selecting are the annual poppies. This one turned up in a hypertufa trough on the patio.

Near the trough are two small native wildflowers that were purchased and planted so we could see them from the table. Four nerve daisy blooms most of the year but the Blue-eyed grass usually makes a short visit. The unusual weather has kept it blooming.

A couple of feet away is a little tapestry composed of Silver ponyfoot, White-flowering sedum and a wandering Ice Plant.

After seeing Renee Studebaker's garden on tour last year, I came home and pruned the fig tree and the pomegranate tree in the Secret Garden, hoping to make them more productive. That pruning also gave more sun to the Pineapple Guava and it has more flowers than ever before! Will there be fruit this year?

Another shrub in bloom now is a fragrant, double, yellow oleander, growing in a bottomless wooden box. Twelve years ago this large shrub arrived as a one-foot-tall rooted cutting from Plant Delights. If you want to grow one, check out the current Plant Delights catalog.

Near the Sweetheart Arch the Shasta daisies have started, backed up by Salvia 'Hot Lips', Salvia guaranitica and Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue'. I like the way the rusty reddish brown of the arch at right is echoed by the burgundy-leaved cannas on the left

When the flowers are in bloom the insects are blooming, too! These 'Bush Early Girl' tomatoes are making fruit in the vegetable garden near the cilantro, which has mostly gone to flower. I saw ladybug larvae on the cilantro (Good) but also saw a cluster of tomato-wrecking Leaf-footed stink bug young-uns on a patio plant (Bad). The ladybug larvae are still there, but the stinkbug offspring are departed.

From what I can gather from various sources online, this cute little Shiny Flea Beetle appears to be of Texas origin and seems to specialize in Scuttelaria - the Skullcaps. It seems to be more of a problem in places like Florida, where it is not native... but with 6 kinds of Scuttelaria in this garden, I'd better keep an eye on it. (Looks like friends on the Texas GardenWeb are also seeing these little beetles on their skullcaps.)

(The botanical name of the insect was misspelled on original photo so this was edited with redone photos and added links, May 19, 2013)


There's another type of insect larva that hasn't appeared this year, although I've certainly tried to attract them by growing milkweed in many close-together beds and borders. Maybe the Monarch butterflies skipped my garden this spring because they heard about the Titan School Garden here in Austin!   

More photos and the complete list of what is in bloom with botanical names can be found at Annie's Addendum.

Links to Garden Bloom Day posts from all over can be found at the May Dreams Garden Blog. Happy May Dreams, Carol!

This post, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day May 2013, was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog.

November Bloom Day - Expected and Unexpected

Written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose blog

There's a complete list of blooms for November 15th (along with more photos) over at my Annie's Addendum blog. Please take a look! I did my best with the botanical names but I'm not a botanist - let me know if you think something is wrong.

Spot watering/hand watering has kept quite a few things alive in spite of drought and heat. The almost-3 inches of rain that fell on October 9 helped the shrubs and the cooler weather has helped everything - including the gardeners.

A few weeks ago the Abelias began blooming and suddenly Monarch butterflies appeared. Now the Monarchs have moved on and the A-Bee-Lias bloom for another kind of winged insect

Their flowers are lovely whenever they appear but that bees will love them is expected.

Another lovely thing is the Loquat tree, mostly recovered from bad freeze damage last winter, and just beginning to open its fragrant flowers.
That scent now says Thanksgiving to me, so it's not unexpected in November but after the hailstorms, flood, deep cold, extreme heat and unprecedented drought it's experienced in the last couple of years, I'm grateful that the scent of the loquat still floats on the air.

What is unexpected is to see bluebonnets with buds in November. Apparently some seeds had sprouted in late winter or early spring but were immediately overshadowed by the nearby seedlings of Cosmos. The bluebonnets lurked underneath the jungle of tall orange cosmos leaves and stems, only revealing themselves when that generation of cosmos died off so a new crop could start. My neighborhood has only had a light frost so far - it will be interesting to see whether this flower will be able to bloom blue or if it will freeze.
The usual milkweed grown in Illinois was the orange perennial Asclepias tuberosa. I've tried that here with no luck. So a few years ago I planted the tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica , and now it is a reseeding annual in my garden. Seeds often sprout in inconvenient places so some are pulled up, but I always let a handful grow on to bloom with colorful yellow petals & red-orange sepals. This month there are many flowers on four plants but there seems to be something unusual about the sepals. Although I can't remember them being anything but solid red-orange in previous years, this year all four plants display white blotches on some of the sepals.

Darned if I know why... they seem to be opening solid first and then the white streak shows up. Has anyone else seen these white marks on tropical milkweed? Does anyone know why it happens?
After you've checked out the list on the Addendum you can find more than 125 gardens linked to May Dreams Carol for November Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.