Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: September 2010

From the top: indigo spires salvia; Turk's cap and inland sea oats; thryallis (aka 'rain of gold'); Mexican sunflower (aka tithonia); firespike (which the hummingbirds visited last week); 'golden' cosmos; cypress vine; 'coral nymph' salvia; end of season obedient plant; chives (a baby anole lizard has been hanging out in them the past week, catching visiting insects); firebush (planted in July) and trailing lantana; Mexican petunia; 'hot lips' autumn sage; Mexican sage and Texas sage. Not shown, but blooming: Russian sage, chaste tree, flame acanthus.

Interesting how many of my plants have 'Mexican' or 'fire' in the name. Thanks to the Hermine deluge last week (my rain gauge only measures up to 5 inches, but we got a couple more than that), everything looks pretty happy right now. And I haven't had to water anything in the ground since, which is such a luxury for summer. Despite the fact that school has started, the day-time weather doesn't realize that it's fall yet, and we're still hanging out in the mid-90's.

To see more gardens around the world, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens. It's been so much fun to participate in the monthly look at what's blooming and a nice journal of what's going on in my own garden seasonally. Happy Bloom Day!

Angel's trumpets

For all the subtle coloration on the buds yesterday, these datura blooms are white. They opened up last night as soon as it was dark and had a lovely plumeria-like fragrance (floral but clean & not too sweet); very fleeting though.

Buds and bugs

So, I bought 3 angel's trumpet plants (4"pots) a few years ago at the Ladybird Center plants sale...and did nothing with them, except move them to slightly larger plastic pots every year. Only one made it through this last winter, and FINALLY it looks like I'll get blooms from it. I had no idea the buds were so tall (they grow inches in a day, and are almost 10 inches at the moment). Also, I assumed they'd be white, but these seem yellow with a dusty mauve. Very exciting!


On the less glamorous side, 4 queen butterflies stripped the milkweed I planted in July and are furiously searching for more milkweed-y goodness. Sorry guys! I'll have to plant some more this fall. I'm hoping they got enough to get to cocoon stage.

And these horrible cactus bugs showed up on my prickly pear not too long ago. I guess they're pretty common, but I can't say I'm a fan. (The up-close shot was pretty fearsome, so I settled for a bit further back)

Hot color in the garden

Yep, it's summer...hot, hot summer. And the flowers in the back right now are, appropriately, blooming in flame colors. Mexican sunflowers (top) have the most gorgeous, velvety petals, and this is the first one to bloom. Below that: Turk's cap, firespike (started blooming this week), and golden cosmos.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: August 2010

So, summer's in full swing, and even the prolific bloomers, like flame acanthus are not very photogenic right now. It's just too hot (up around a hundred everyday) to look pretty. But the obedient plant on the north side of the house (just a couple of hours of morning sun) started blooming this week and is a refreshing spot of color.




Close-up of obedient plant; golden cosmos with tiny pink butterfly; the chives in the front just sent up buds this week; and this caterpillar on the milkweed is new...maybe a Queen caterpillar of the monarch family.

Also blooming right now: turk's cap, chaste tree, russian sage, flame acanthus, indigo spires sage, mexican petunia, standing cypress, firebush, and thryallis. And to see what's blooming around the world today, visit May Dreams.

Seedpods and squirrel nest

Picked up the top seed pod rosette on this morning's walk (something like sensitive plant); wish it would keep, but the seeds are already popping out. The second is horsemint gone to seed. And below is one of two nests built by squirrels about a week and a half ago in my hackberry tree. I noticed small branches all over the lawn, and when I looked up, there was the squirrel pruning, catching (sometimes), and carrying up the branches to the work-in-progress.

Strange, colorful harvest

The suyo long cucumber is being fairly productive right now (the flavor's really great for salads). The regular cucumber is a little bitter-skinned. Most of my backyard "harvests" are so small that I just wash and eat straight off the plants. This purple beauty pepper is sort of backwards in that it starts out dark purple, goes green, then red when it's sweeter (here it's a bit of all three). I've been hand-pollinating the cukes with an old paintbrush, but I'm hoping the addition of cosmos and a few other blooms in the back bring more pollinators.