Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: June 2014

A thunderstorm this past week plus the beginning of summer combined for some pretty blooms this Bloom Day (for more gardens, check out May Dreams Gardens).

Mutabilis rose

Martha Gonzalez rose
Pale pavonia
Tropical milkweed

Passionvine

Soapwort and Mexican petunia

Trumpetvine

Cosmos and feathergrass

Globe mallow

Gregg's Mist

California poppies

Coneflower (passalong from a neighbor)

Peter's purple monarda

Coral bean

Beach vitex

Chocolate cosmos

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: May 2014

It's all shades of purple with orange accents up in here for this month's GBBD (hosted by May Dreams Gardens), starting with the star of the front yard: artichoke (and, yes, they do feel like koosh balls).

Curb strip Candystripe cosmos, from seed thrown out last year

Globe mallow just keeps trucking along

Creeping germander hasn't crept very far, but the blooms remind me of lavender

Passionvine

Mexican petunia, filling in with no help from me, per usual

End of the larkspur among the iris foliage

Heartleaf skullcap

Trumpet vine just started blooming yesterday

Not pictured, but just started blooming: magnolia, crepe myrtle and coral bean.

Happy spring, gardeners!

April Foliage Follow-up

Mexican feathergrass is in full good-hair-day glory out front. And the artichokes, fig, Gulf muhly and artemisia providing some nice layers of foliage texture.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: April 2014

Days of irises and roses this Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (hosted by May Dreams Gardens). A day late to the party, but here's what was blooming in my garden yesterday.

Moved these iris from the driveway area a couple of falls ago, and finally a bloom!

Mutabilis rose is covered in peach, pink and dusty rose blooms

Gotta love Martha Gonzales rose this time of year

This shade of iris has been blooming for at least a couple of weeks (preceded by the deep burgundy ones)

First passion flower bloom of the year opened up on GBBD!

Bee enjoying bolted cilantro

Top heavy iris blooms hiding among the Gregg's Mist

Bluebonnets!
 
And bluebonnets going to seed en masse. These are all volunteers from a single bluebonnet that showed up in my front yard last spring.

California poppies in such happy shades of orange and neon yellow

The unstoppable show that is globe mallow

Poppies and massive globe mallow in context

White Mexican poppy

Future blooming excitement (aka artichokes)

Somebody's been eating the last burgundy iris, but they put on an excellent show this year. Definitely doing some dividing and transplanting this fall.

Happy late bloom day! And check out May Dreams Gardens for more gardens around the world.

Accidental Butterfly Garden

When I chose the plants for the two beds on either side of the path to the back gate, I did not realize I was making a butterfly garden. But the white mistflower turned out to be a huge beacon to pollinators: butterflies, bees, hairy flies, you name it. Here's one of the prettier visitors. Long view includes the sad chain link fence which will hopefully be covered in passionflower vine this time next year (and maybe some fritillaries). The milkweed is the one plant specifically chosen for butterflies, and it's working just fine as you can see from the monarch and queen butterflies. Blue mistflower was nothing but uninteresting foliage from last fall till this november, but it's now a noteworthy plant. Martha Gonzales rose and pavonia mix in with the white mistflower.