Garden Bloggers Bloom Day January 2012

Repeated freezes have edited the garden, removing the warm-weather annuals and sending perennials into dormancy. But the temperatures haven't dipped below 25°F (that sometimes magic number) while late fall rains fell softly, letting enough water sink down to soften the ground so we can dig in the earth once more.

That relatively mild weather has allowed the loquats to bloom for two months and has given the Camellia sasanqua 'Shishi Gashira' its longest flowering season ever-
Lack of deep freezes has encouraged flowers for over a month to pop out along the arching branches of the Loropetalum, sometimes called Chinese Witch Hazel

The shrimp plants remain unblackened


Strong winter sun can make even a cool day pleasant enough for coffee on the patio, the cups sharing table space with yellow snapdragons and blue pansies.
A few feet away the Four-nerve daisies continue flowering

and near the back door the burgundy-leaved oxalis feels secure enough to flower.
It's very odd to see a bluebonnet in January! My guess is that seedlings sprouted too late to bloom last spring and then the reseeding orange cosmos plants swiftly made a canopy over them. After the first freeze took out the cosmos, the bluebonnets were given a turn in the sun.
The winter sun is just as strong in the front garden but up there cold winds usually sweep and scour, sending most plants into dormancy. It's unusual to have January blooms from the purple lantana plants and even more unusual to see flowers on the creeping phlox.
Scorching afternoon sun combined with harsh winds were too much for the three previous shrubs I tried in the front window bed, but this grape holly, probably Mahonia bealei, is not only alive but in bloom.
Purple oxalis in flower in the hypertufa near the front door wasn't too surprising, but why did a flowering stem of fragrant stock suddenly pop up? I'd set out a few stock plants last spring but the heat withered the tops and there was no sign of them by late summer. Did the roots live through the Summer of Hell and send up shoots? Or did seeds drop, sprout & bloom?
Soon after we moved here in 2004 I planted a small, white-flowering groundcover from the spiderwort family under a live oak. Every leaf disappeared during the heat and drought & I wondered whether it was dead or dormant. Rains in December coaxed new growth from some roots that survived, and January flowers followed
Paperwhite daffodils and Narcissus 'Grand Primo' grow side-by-side near the steps to the veranda. The paperwhites are almost at the end of their bloom cycle for 2012 - and a rather wimpy display it was, too! The paperwhites in back didn't make a single flower.
But even though the 'Grand Primo' daffodils had their buds frozen off last winter and were baked & broiled all summer, they're now showing us why they come so highly recommended by experts like Scott Ogden and the people at Central Texas Gardener.
One last little bloom is sweet rather than showy, and the shrub is barely larger than when I first planted it. When my mother gave me this 'Champagne' mini-rose neither she nor I knew it would be the last birthday gift she would ever give me. Any time it blooms makes it a special Garden Bloggers Bloom Day for me!

For a complete list with some pretty good guesses at the botanical names go to my companion blog, Annie's Addendum.
To see a round-up of what's in bloom at garden blogs from many places go to May Dreams Gardens.


This post 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.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day August 2011

My original intention was to ignore May Dreams Garden's GBBD for this month - here in Austin we've had 62 days over 100 degrees F - just a few days from the record. Rain is just a memory and the few plants with flowers seemed to be the same ones that appeared in July - so what was the point? But then on Saturday a Texas Star Hibiscus that I'd been babying along rewarded me with one bright red flower

I stubbornly held out... then this morning I noticed an open flower on a Stapelia gigantea plant that I'd moved to a semi-sunny spot on the patio. I took the pot to the patio table for a closer look - not just one flower but with 2 more budsI couldn't ignore this! My current herd of Stapelia plants descend from one given to me by my Aunt Phyllis over 20 years ago. "Herd" may not be the official collective noun for Stapelia, but doesn't it seem appropriate for members of the Milk-weed family? Stapelias are container plants here - our winters will kill them if they're left outside. Carrion flower is another name - the meaty scent draws flies.

The Blue Butterfly clerodendron bloomed for July GBBD - but the BLUE is a transient characteristic now, rather than a permanent attribute. Look how bleached the blooms become in this intense sun: The little annual native Zinnia linearis (or if you prefer, Zinnia angustifolia) have been in bloom only because I handwater them. The grass is not so lucky.I also water a container of 'Sun Gold' tomatoes - soaking it well every day. The runoff seeps into the ground, ending up in the roots of the native Sunflower just below the container, keeping the flowers and seedheads in production for the finches.
A similar relationship has developed under this not-quite-established 'Zuni' crepe myrtle, put in last winter with hopes it will someday shade the breakfast room windows. I planted a 'Mexico Midget' tomato under the young tree so watering one waters both.

Keeping the Sunflower and Crepe Myrtle alive means keeping the tiny tomato plants alive & keeping the tomatoes alive means I get a small handful of little tomatoes a couple of times a week. They're very tart and go especially well in tuna salad. The heat means I refill birdbaths and saucers at least once - usually twice- a day. I've been diligent about watering other plants with flowers that are not just decorative, but are important to wildlife. The bees need flowers like the tiny pink & lilac blooms on this Cuphea
Usually my assorted collection of tubular red and blue Salvias keep blooming most of the summer, but this year some Salvias have bailed and others refuse to bloom at all. Some extra water coaxed the Mexican Honeysuckle into taking up the slack as a nectar source for the hummingbirds.
If you think things have gone to the birds around here, you're right! The lawn is toast, the vegetable garden abandoned, and even the cooking sage may have croaked, but I won't give up trying to keep my friends with wings alive.
For a complete list of what's in bloom with botanical names go to my Annie's Addendum blog. To see the GBBD posts of other gardeners go to May Dreams Gardens.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day July 2011

Some of you have already heard how I feel about living in Texas in July. The 2011 heat & drought is worse than when I wrote this song in 2009! The last couple of winters finished off the Aloes, Agaves and cactus, so there's already a nostalgic quality to the photos in the video:


"I Don't Want to Be in Texas in July" via my YouTube Station Kaefka


But with the help of a few long hoses and a big hat, I helped quite a few flowers to survive and pose for May Dreams Carol & Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. Most photos will expand when clicked.

The plants on the patio and along the back of the house look the best. The house shields them from the searing sun of late afternoon and they're close to the back door and the hose.
A Blue Pea vine/Clitoria ternatea sprouted near the rain chain, now fitting in quite nicely with the resident Blue Plumbagos and Tropical Milkweeds. There's only one flower head on this newly planted, hand-delivered in person, division of my Grandmother's phlox but it's good to see this heirloom in bloom. A tiny-flowered pink form of Batfaced Cuphea peeks in from the side.
Near the birdbath fountain the red & purple batfaced Cuphea is out of bloom but the Blue Daze Evolvolus has not stopped. A 'Red Cascade' minirose draped a branch over the container, substituting its own red blossoms for the missing cuphea flowers.
Last year a large pot of Blue Butterfly Clerodendron was the star of the patio but an exceptionally harsh February nearly killed it, reducing the crown by 2/3. The plant is barely half the size it was last July but it's alive and it's still blooming blue. (You may find this beauty under various botanical names: Clerodendrum ugandense, or Clerodendrum myricoides 'Ugandense' or Rotheca myricoides 'Ugandense'. )

Iris/Society Garlic gave me a couple of tomato seedlings last spring. One is blooming and making tiny tomatoes near the back door - this one was labeled 'Mexico Midget'.

This miniature tomato plant and the equally tiny 'Sungold' tomato in a container are the only tomato plants still making fruit.
Around the corner of the house in the Secret Garden there's only one perennial in bloom - Buddleja lindleyana is dangling its wandflowers against the house. Part shade helps this shrub survive, and so does being in the drip line of the live oak. The drip line rather than the area close to the trunk is where slowly watering can help our stressed trees. Life is tougher away from the house in the full sun triangle bed - the native Blackfoot Daisies look exhausted

Just a few feet away, native Zinnia linearis looks much fresher. The bedraggled long leaves belong to an Amarcrinum. Last fall I moved that non-blooming Amarcrinum from a shady spot, hoping more sun would kickstart flowering. Maybe I should have left it alone! At the other end of this bed the Orange Cosmos bloom, go to seed and regrow.
It looks messy but this patch is not for people - it's for the finches, as are the nearby tall native sunflowers.
Dicliptera suberecta/Uruguayan Hummingbird Plant is also for the birds. Later on the seedheads of Crepe myrtles may be eaten by birds, too - but right now we appreciate the foliage and flowers of the cool white 'Acoma' crepe myrtles.
Last month I showed you the small 'Catawba' crepe myrtle planted in 2010. We ran into a tree sale at the end of June & now there's another 'Catawba' on the opposite side of that path.
Last month I showed you buds on the crepe myrtle labeled "Zuni' - the promise was kept and delicate, pinky-lilac flowers are open on the small tree outside the breakfast room window.
The tree sale was a good one with varieties we wanted in sizes we could haul home ourselves. We bought one for the front but instead of planting it, repotted it into a larger container for now.

So if we ever get cooler temperatures, if we ever get rain, and if we can manage to dig a hole in the baked front yard, there may be someday be a Garden Bloggers Bloom Day featuring a tall, 'Muskogee' crepe myrtle covered in lavender flowers.

May all your days be Blooming Days!