The Whitebud is Late for March GBBD

Welcome to a pretty good Garden Bloggers Bloom Day post for May Dreams Carol! Spring looks more normal this year after rains have lessened the drought - my garden has more flowers than a sensible person could expect after the last 3 years, surviving hail, record heat, record drought, record cold and a sideswipe from Hurricane Hermione. The green of annual grasses gives the look of a lawn. The coral honeysuckle- Lady Banks rose combo on the arch are once again in synch
There was enough moisture to make Bluebonnet seeds sprout and grow. Salvia greggii is starting to bloom, the Blackfoot daisies lived through winter, the larkspur has buds, the white iris flowered and the cilantro is bolting. The first fragrant peach iris opened today
After months of bloom, the Loropetalum/Chinese witch hazel is still adding color - this time with bright new leavesBattered but alive, the Banana Shrub scents the air and makes me smileSomething happened to the native Mock Orange that has suckered along both sides of the fence - a lot has died. But there's a big chunk living and blooming still.
In 2011 the Meyer's Lemon tree against the garage wall was frozen, nearly died and had no flowers. In 2012 it reaches to the roofline and has hundreds of buds ready to open.
Last year the Texas Mountain laurel froze but it was beautiful this year
The native Four-Nerve daisies haven't stopped flowering for months so no surprise there... but when the also hyphenated Blue-Eyed grass lives and blooms again it's an event!
I bought a native Mexican Buckeye last spring, then chickened out as the heat came on, moving it into a larger container rather than planting it in the hard, hot earth. Last month with softened ground and more hope in our hearts Philo & I set it out under where the canopy of a live oak will shade it in afternoon. It's a small shrub so we had to look down to see the flowers.
Texas redbud and old-fashioned Spiraea are paired again
But the Whitebud is not only late for bloom day - it must be permanently known as the Late Whitebud. The flowers were beautiful in the March 2011 post for GBBD, but the tree was already in its final decline. The garden is named Circus ~ Cercis for the 3 kinds of redbuds but the star is gone! Tom Waits once sang
"tell me who will put flowers
On a flower's grave"

Actually, most gardeners do it all the time, planting new flowers when something dies. I dried my tears and bought a 'Muskogee' crepe myrtle, hoping it will handle the harsh west winds and sun in that front bed. When my turn as hostess for The Divas of the Dirt came last November, in addition to making hypertufa troughs we planted the new tree forward of the spot where the whitebud once grew. The leaves will not be heart-shaped but with luck the blooms will be beautiful.
A complete list of blooms with botanical names is posted on my Annie's Addendum blog.

(The lyrics for Flowers Grave can be found at the Tom Waits website and the song is on YouTube. )

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, April 2009

This bloom day is better than I thought it would be a couple of weeks ago - the garden is hail-scarred but the buds that weren't knocked off keep opening.Seven amaryllis from long-ago Christmases grow in the bulb bed - four are in bud and this one opened today. Some have no leaves left at all.


'Julia Child' lost a lot of leaves and I found a dozen unopened buds on the ground the morning after the hail. But she's releafing and there were many more buds in reserve.



The unnamed tall pink climbing rose grows under the roof overhang - unharmed and happy. The flowers seem much larger than last year... maybe because I remembered to fertilize it last month?



Out on the patio, one blossom opened on the smaller Pineapple guava/Feijoa sellowiana. This plant and a more established one in the Secret Garden were bashed pretty hard, especially toward the top of the shrubs. But nearer the base of each plant a few buds were sheltered by the branches. I won't hope for fruit, but will enjoy the flowers.


The hail did some damage to the Secret Garden Passionvine but most of the holes in the flowers and leaves aren't weather-related. They're the work of caterpillars which will grow up to be Gulf Fritillary butterflies. There were a dozen of them on this vine yesterday. A few years ago, when the new Passionvine plant consisted of one struggling strand with a few leaves, I killed any caterpillars that appeared. The plant was too fragile and there wasn't enough substance to the plant for the cats to reach the pupa stage. Now that the vine is established and can take the munching, I enjoy the uneaten flowers and let the rest support the butterfly larvae.


The Confederate Jasmine on the end of the front veranda began to open on Sunday - soon after our guests left. Just walking from the front door to the car can be an intoxicating experience.



In the Bat-shaped bed, Bridal Wreath spirea is the background for the tall, grape-scented passalong iris from my friend Ellen.



The adjacent Pink Entrance Bed is just plain gaudy now - the Weigela 'Rumba' seen in the last post are still blooming, along with deep pink Gaura, the coral colored Hesperaloe parviflora seen above, two pink mini-roses, creeping ice plant and a 'Belinda's Dream' rose which will show up below.




In the back yard the dappled sun under the pecan trees made this unnamed Siberian iris look striped, but it's really solid violet-blue. I'm thrilled to have it not only survive but be happy in Austin - there are 15 bloom stalks this year.



Not too far from the Siberian iris I planted some mixed Anemone bulbs last fall. For me Anemones bloom but don't return. The red one above looks similar to red anemones from other springs.


But I've never seen a white anemone with this shape before. It's really pretty and different.




Along the back fence a Southern variety of MockOrange grows. It's Philadelphus inodorus, also called English Dogwood, and although it's lovely, it's also unscented.



The Spanish Lavender is cheerful and pretty but its rather pleasant scent is somehow not quite the same as 'real' lavender. The Fernleaf lavender that grew in this bed last year had no lavender scent at all. Luckily it was tender and the Fernleaf plant croaked over the winter. Once the Fernleaf was gone, the Spanish Lavender/Lavendula stoechas and the Sweet Lavender/Lavendula heterophylla started to expand and grow. The Sweet lavender is just making buds - so far they smell like the real thing!




At our last house the hummingbirds would come for Calibrachoa - this basket hangs outside the breakfast room in hopes it will entice them close so we can see them.



The 'Ramona' clematis isn't in the ground, but grows in a container on the bench near the shed. It's got about 7 or 8 large flowers right now.



This is a new Salvia - Cedar sage/Salvia roemeriana. It's a native plant, frequently found growing under junipers AKA cedar trees. In my yard it's planted next to the new small Yaupon holly with cedar mulch all around it...think it will be fooled?


Below are all the photos Blogger insisted on uploading sideways, even though they've been formatted and saved in landscape form. This happens every bloom day and is a huge, time-sucking pain! The last few times I've reopened every incorrectly oriented photo in Photoshop Elements, resaving them from jpgs to pngs then uploading again. It seems to work but the pngs are huge files compared to jpgs. Blogger churns as it uploads and my portion of Blogger MB's shrinks too quickly. Philo and I are trying to decide on a new roof and I'm too tired and cranky to mess around fixing them tonight, so even if the words wrap around them and look stupid, too bad. The first open flower on a pale apricot mini-rose that was a gift from our daughter and son-in-law a couple of springs ago. I love the color and it's making buds and flowers so maybe it's finally in the right place!


Rosa 'Belinda's Dream' from the Pink Entrance Bed in the front, with oregano and ice plant below.


This clematis twines up at the base of the Lady Banks rose. It was mislabled but looks a lot like the photos of 'Miss Bateman' which is close enough for me. Think there are six flowers right now.



Ixia/Corn lilies planted in fall 2007 bloomed last spring and then returned this year. And instead of being smaller the second year - the florets are larger!


Sooner or later I'll get a list of all that is in bloom today (with botanical names) up on Annie's Addendum. Have fun visiting the other blogs participating in Carol of May Dreams Garden's monthly roundup of what's in flower at Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Awash in Purple and White

It looks like someone’s been camping in the back yard, doesn’t it? We had frost warnings last Saturday night, and after we hauled the Plumeria and other tender plants into the garage, Philo rigged up some temporary tents with sheets over the tomato stakes, held together with clamps. We had icy rain and some hail, the official temperature was 34º, and there was ice on the roof, but on Easter Sunday, the tomatoes and peppers were uncovered and look okay.
I hope the peach orchards of the Hill Country made it through the night, too – although we’d hate to lose our tomatoes, we aren’t depending on them as a crop – and we are not expecting crowds of people driving to our house to buy our produce. Fredericksburg’s peaches are not only a crop, but a reason for people to visit Central Texas, enjoying restaurants, shops, Wildseed Farms, an herb farm and the Nimitz museum of the War in the Pacific, a thought-provoking place which juxtaposes weapons of world war two with a Japanese Garden of Peace.

I also hope you like photos of Mockorange and Purple Iris, because I’m still thrilled at seeing them every morning. This particular Mockorange seems to be Philadelphus inodorus, with large individual flowers but not scented, at least none that I can detect. Here’s a closeup to show how really large the flowers are – I’ve heard that an old Southern name for them is English Dogwood.
Maybe this photo can give you an idea of how overwhelming the shrub can be when you stand next to it – the wooden fence is six feet tall, and the mock orange behind the fence extends another 4-to-5 five feet above that. Here are Ellen’s iris once again, still blooming and with more buds in reserve. Ellen handed me the sack of iris divisions in mid-March 2006, when this iris bed was still in the planning stages. The Divas had already planted the three spiraea, but I was still clearing and digging the ground around them. The iris corms sat in a paper bag on the garage floor for weeks, then took off once their roots hit the soil. I was amazed that these iris bloomed so well just one year after transplanting, and even more amazed at the high bud count of this passalong iris.
The iris are planted in the side garden, fairly close to the sidewalk, in a sort of Bat-shaped bed, honoring Austin’s famous free-tail Bat colony. The three shrubs of spiraea are just finishing their bloom cycle. Until this spring, there has been little in our front yard to slow down anyone who is passing by on foot or bicycle, but this display of purple makes the moms and kids stop.They instinctively lean in to see if the iris smell good, and this variety does have a light, but very pleasant fragrance.

As long as we’re in the front of the house let’s look at the space formerly occupied by the Arizona Ash.

A few weeks ago Austex called to say the stump-grinder was fixed, and I watched this powerful tool in action, cutting through the enormous footprint left by the tree, churning the bits of wood together with the surrounding black clay. Since I really wanted the chips and dirt, I asked the workmen to leave the debris… they were kind enough to shovel some into sacks so I could use it for another project, leaving most of the wood/soil mixture mounded in place. For now, we’re just letting it settle and start to decompose.

Philo set the birdbath at the edge, and we planted a new tree off to the side, where it could frame the house rather than block it. We chose a native tree, one that doesn’t get enormous. Here are the leaves of our new Texas Redbud, Cercis canadensis var texensis. The tag also promised that it’s the white-flowering form – the long-desired Texas Whitebud - a promise that I hope will be fulfilled with white bloom next spring. I love the shiny leaves.

There are lots of other plants with buds that should be open for the April Bloom Day, but today I’m happy with green, white and violet-purple. I'd also like to say how grateful and overwhelmed it was to have so many comments on the post about enjoying blogging. Those of you who are still being clobbered by The Winter That Won't Leave touched my heart with your concern at how we in Texas made it through our little cold spell. I hope you will be awash in spring colors very soon!