A Three Sisters Bloom Day for May 2012

 This post was written by me, Annie in Austin, for my Transplantable Rose Blog.


Philo and I enjoyed the flowers that bloomed here on the 15th but May 15th was not my target date this month. The truly important date came a few days later when my sisters popped in from Illinois for a long weekend. They really came to visit our Austin family, not to see plants, but I still wanted the garden to shine.

Josie and Hannah have visited Austin before but only in fall. This time my gardening sisters and I would have our own special Garden Bloom Day for May. Some favorite plants didn't cooperate... 'Julia Child' rose had just finished a bloom cycle and it's too early for the 'Acoma' crepe myrtles

 

but a few Magnolia buds looked promising

 

We planned on meeting other family members at local restaurants for some meals but in a pre-houseguest tizzy I also cooked old favorites like Shredded Chicken with Peppers and baked a Cheesecake. Philo and I could hardly wait for our beloved guests to arrive! 

The front-garden greeting committee included the Mutabilis Rose. This enormous shrub rose used to be in shade by mid-May, but since the recent demise of Arizona Ash #2, it's still in sun and has continued to bloom.

Although Hesperaloe is called Red Yucca, it sure looks fluorescent pink to me. That's why this native relative of asparagus grows in the Pink Entrance Garden with Cherry Skullcap at its feet. Things would have been even more gaudy but the 'Belinda's Dream' rose behind the Hesperaloe was Resting Between Engagements.

The Vitex agnus-castus/Chaste tree caught Josie's eye as she went to the veranda steps. It had started to open over the weekend, the shrub resembling the unrelated Butterfly bushes while the color and shape of the blooms look a little like lilacs.
Like many plants here, the look of the flower draws you to smell it, but Vitex flower heads have only a vaguely herby-meadowy smell rather than a scent worth making into perfumes. 

In a similar way you can be drawn to the beauty of many Salvias while being repelled by the funky smell. Mexican Mint marigold flowers are not as beautiful as salvias, but the foliage smells better in an inside vase.    

For more than 50 years a peony that once grew in my grandmother's garden has been divided and shared around the family. In Illinois, Peonies and Lilacs rule the month of May with both color and fragrance but they can't live here so I had to leave them behind.
Luckily, Grandma's peony still blooms in the gardens of my sisters and cousins. My sister Hannah cut three flowers that were just beginning to show petal color and tucked them into her suitcase. I recut them and put them in water, and the first one opened two days later. 

My sisters' daylilies bloom at the end of June and during July, but in Austin they flower in late April and May. The old-fashioned orange daylily bloomed with Larkspur in April but by the time my sisters came it was done and the larkspur was going to seed. 'Devonshire' had open flowers, with purple-blue supplied by Mealy blue sage.

 

I brought 'Prairie Blue Eyes' to Austin with me in 1999 and it still looks good. 

 

A passalong daylily from Pam Penick, 'Best of Friends', was having a spectacular year - nine stems with 8 huge flowers open at once

 The dwarf 'Vi's Apricot' daylily had been blooming for weeks, a passalong from a friend in Illinois. My sisters took divisions of this little flower home to plant in their gardens - even though Vi can no longer garden, her special plant will keep on blooming.

My sisters saw the buds of the citron daylily - the original plant didn't live through summer 2011 but I'd moved a small division near the house. One flower opened yesterday.

The Cenizo/Texas sage had popped some flowers - today it's covered in blooms

Hannah & Josie liked the 'Red Cascade' climbing mini-rose mixed into the Rosemary

They liked the two-tone flowers of 'Hot Lips' salvia

 

 

  

They wondered how tropical milkweed would do in Illinois

And liked the pure light blue of Plumbago with Purple oxalis

They were here when the Hydrangea x Bliss 'Sweet Carol' bloomed for the first time since 2008.

They got to see dwarf pomegranates forming

 and to see small Meyer's lemons growing on the tree behind the house

The garden was full of birds this week - we watched them from the breakfast room and in the garden- here's a white-winged dove herding a fledgling under cover

And before they left, they encountered a genuinely lovely Southern scent - Magnolia blossoms on the 'Little Gem' tree.

 

We had a wonderful time but the few days went by in a blur - the entire family group liked Trudy's patio

 But all too soon they were rolling the suitcases away 

Now it seems like summer instead of May... yesterday we got the first tomatoes of 2012. 

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog... probably much too late for the roundup of GBBD posts by May Dreams Carol 

Ed May 25, 2012. The complete list is now up at Annie's Addendum. 

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, June 2008

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for June, 2008 was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog.

When temperatures hang near the hundred degree mark, it's tempting to hang out near the disappearing fountain in the garden we view from the breakfast room window...

But it's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for June 2008 - time to show the front gardens, too.

We Divas of the Dirt planted this 'Mutabilis' Rose when we made the new front garden in March. It's doing quite well in spite of the heat - and so are those white bedding geraniums in the hypertufa containers near the steps.

Some of the plants in the Pink Entrance garden have stood up well to the weather - the pink gaura and skullcap are still blooming, now joined by the 'Purple Stars' coneflowers.

From the other direction we see the old-fashioned self-seeding petunias, the Mexican oregano and Platycodon 'Miss Tilly' - those blue balloonflowers.



We're through the gate now, and looking at a white coneflower that finally struggled up in the long fence border. A yellow daylily is in its second bloom cycle - that's Hemerocallis 'Happy Returns', along with lambs ears and the yellow snapdragons first seen last December. I wish there had been a variety name on the tag!

The last post had many photos of the back borders - those flowers are still blooming so rather than show them again, here are a few floral close ups instead.

The 'Blue River II' perennial hibiscus with its 9 to 10 inch flowers that last one day.


A second 'Mutabilis' rose, growing in its patio container. This is how the flowers look when they're newly opened- later changing to ever-darker shades of pink.

One bloom appeared on the back door clematis - this photo was taken in late afternoon when the sun had moved to the opposite side of the house and the color seems more true to life...the photos looked too red when it's appeared here in spring.

Here you can see the strong line between sun and shade on the patio - such severe light can fry a delicate plant, but the red bedding geraniums in the pot near the rocker can tolerate the changes.


There's one more flower I'd like to show you - it's up in front in the shade of an Arizona Ash.
Yes - this is a hydrangea ....not a sensible plant to grow in Austin perhaps, although in amended soil, with shade and attention from the watering can this one is growing and now flowering. I hadn't planned on buying a hydrangea last summer - but when it appeared on the 'rescue table' at the home center the price had been reduced from over $30.00 down to $5.00. And then I saw the name of the hydrangea on the tag.
This is a hybrid beauty, a Hydrangea macrophylla/seratta cross - and its name combines two of the most famous and honored garden bloggers. Take a close look at the tag.My plant is a Bliss Hydrangea x 'Sweet Carol' - it made me think of both Yolanda Elizabet and May Dreams Carol, so I just had to bring it home!

Enjoy visiting all the participating gardens at Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, hosted by Sweet Carol in Indiana.


Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for June, 2008 was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog.