Garden Bloggers Bloom Day April 2012

Spring 2012 has brought some pleasant surprises, like blooms on the Hesperaloe/Red yucca - the first flowers in three years.

The mild winter allowed the unfrozen Loquat tree to give us fruit as well as flowers.

But our tree seems to be better at making flowers- the fruit is quite small with very large seeds so it took an enormous amount of loquats to yield enough pulp for one batch of loquat salsa and a few jars of loquat jam.

It wasn't exactly a surprise when the 1940 US census records were released at the beginning of April - genealogists and family historians were counting down the days. Building the index is a huge project, requiring thousands and thousands of volunteers. I've tried to balance my desire to quickly hunt down my own family members in 1940 with my wish to help other people find their family history. Now I sometimes hunt and at other times I am a volunteer indexer, working from my home on my own computer to add to the index. If this idea intrigues you, look into becoming an indexer, too - the project is huge and should go on for many months.

One of my favorite not-quite-surprises is the Sweetheart arch. When I planted the 'Climbing Iceberg' rose and Confederate Jasmine on opposite sides it didn't seem like a gamble - those are plants that are usually pretty tough in Austin. They lived but didn't thrive in 2010 & 2011. This spring the arch is almost covered in white flowers - makes you want to walk through and sit on the bench, doesn't it?


If you'd like to see the complete list of everything that was in bloom on April 16, 2012, with my best efforts at the botanical names and more photos, click over to my companion blog, Annie's Addendum.

Since Carol of May Dreams Gardens started this meme in February 2007, on the 15th of each month she makes a post & a roundup of participating gardeners from all over-here is April 2012.

Happy Spring from Annie in Austin!

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 February 2012

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

February 2011 kept us below freezing for 3 straight days, killing some plants and damaging many. So far this February of 2012 has given us cool temperatures rather than freezing cold nights, and there has been some rain. Although the amount of rain that has fallen on my garden is much less than those official measurements from Austin Bergstrom Airport or Camp Mabry, in combination with no nights below 27°F, it was enough to pump up more blooms than usual for February.

There's a complete list of what's in bloom today at Annie's Addendum - the Shrimp Plants, Four-Nerve Daisies, Rosemary, Pineapple Sage, Creeping Phlox and Loropetalum are on the list for another month.

In many winters the Mexican Honeysuckle/Justicia spicigera acts like perennials do in the North, freezing completely to ground level. But this year it has experienced minimum dieback and is in bloom for February

The Sweet Olive/Osmanthus fragrans is quite wonderful right now. In a good year it will be in bloom from late fall until mid-spring. Last year the flowers opened but the scent didn't carry through the parched air, then deep cold froze off the ends of each branch. This year there's new growth and the shrubs are covered in tiny flowers, never showy, but as the name promised - they are fragrant.

One bluebonnet/Lupinus texensis is open today with buds forming on other plants scattered in a few beds.

I don't have a name for this daffodil - perhaps it is 'February Gold'? Someone started it in this yard years ago and the bulbs turned up occasionally after we moved in and began to make a garden in 2004. We tucked them into different beds and borders and I like the way they look with morning light on the petals. This spiraea was also here when we bought the house. It's similar to the ones we called Bridal Wreath in Illinois, but the leaves are more oblong - perhaps it is the variety called Reeve's Spiraea. None of the flowers were open today, but the buds are formed.
The Carolina Jessamine/Gelsemium sempervirens had become a huge tangle last spring and in a normal year would have been pruned back. But once the heat struck, I hesitated to put any additional stress on the plant. Last month I gave it a drastic pruning, taking out deadwood and long vines. The timing meant many flower buds were also pruned but there are enough left to be pretty now.
Is anyone watching the new TV series "Smash"? The story centers on a stage musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn the Star had a reputation for being unpredictable and not showing up when you expected her. 'Marilyn's Choice' the Abutilon has been unpredictable, too - blooming in 2010 then refusing to present a single blossom in 2011. Now in February 2012 she has decided to bloom once more.

Two of the roses decided to bloom this February, too - 'Julia Child' has just begun a bloom cycle, but something about the weather has made the color less like butter and more like a peach.

The front Rosa 'Mutabilis' has taken advantage of a mild winter in a very big way - and even the individual flowers seem to be larger than usual. This rose has a fragrance but you usually have to be close to the flowers. The other day you could smell that rose smell while walking down the sidewalk to the mailbox.

Carol of May Dreams Gardens first invited bloggers to post about their blooms in February 2007 and she was pleased when more than a dozen bloggers gave links to posts. I was one of that group, with a list that included the yellow daffodils, Carolina Jessamine, pansies, the Coral Honeysuckle, Texas Mountain Laurel and the Salmon geranium found on today's list. Apparently there is something addictive in counting up the flowers! Five years later you'll find well over 100 links to posts for this February's Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

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

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.