cuphea

What a happy garden looks like…

My garden is pretty darn happy these days.

A little rain, a little break from the heat and the promise of a fall break has most plants beaming.

Plants that had almost disappeared have made a remarkable recovery and reappearance. And, those without blooms are now showing off.

It’s amazing what a little moisture can do for the garden!

I hadn’t seen this Bat-faced Cuphea in a while, (the deer munched it to the nubs earlier in the summer) but now it’s bursting with color, even giving the unflappable Lantana a run for its money!

This Pitcher Sage that I bought at last year’s Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center plant sale has finally come into its own and is blooming profusely in this pretty, dusty cornflower blue.
The Senorita Rosalita Cleome that Pam of Digging trialed last year sounded perfect for our hot, dry summers. All this rain has made mine very leggy. But, in spite of that, she’s still putting out delicate blooms.
This Pale Pavonia passalong, shared with me by Robin of Getting Grounded, is finally blooming after several months of adjusting to the transplant.
And, not so pretty, but very active thanks to the rains, our resident fire ants. This mound rises 3-4 inches high at the base of my Bi-color Iris.
And their monstrous mound has all but obliterated this little decorative rock that reads, Peace. (Well I can tell you that I didn’t leave them in peace, I sprinkled a nice little dose of ant bait all around their pretty little hill!)

How does your garden grow these days?

Bits and pieces…

The bats came out for Halloween! My son had one in his apartment hallway for a day, Manu Ginobli of the San Antonio Spurs swatted one off the basketball court and had to get rabies shots (ouch!) and these guys have been having a big party in my garden. I just love the little faces of the bat-face Cuphea.

(The deer occasionally find them and nibble them off, but not very often, so I keep one around.)
This little empty spot between the potato vine and the snap dragons is gently holding 10 Gladiator Alliums that will make their debut next Spring. (At least they’d better!)
And this Acapulco Pink and Salmon Agastache was waving at me from across the walkway as I planted the bulbs. It was so pretty, I had to take a picture.

By |2016-04-14T02:42:38-05:00November 3rd, 2009|agastache, alliums, Blog, cuphea, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

The latest in garden decor?

What do you think?  Modern art?  Sculpture de plastique?  An obstacle course?

No, it’s my latest attempt to protect my plants.
Yes, that’s right.  Little Miss Emmy (as I’ve named our resident yearling deer) has been munching on all my newly-planted plants.  Remember the Cuphea I planted on Sunday?  She ate about 1/3 of one Cuphea the first night.  Then she nibbled on another one.  And by the time I bought these milk crates and got them out there this afternoon, she’d sheared them all way down to the base.  And she ate all the bloom buds off of the 3 mums, too.  She did leave the Mexican Oregano alone, though.
Sigh.

I’m hoping that the only reason she ate the Cuphea was because it was young and tender and newly planted, and that she’ll leave them alone when they grow a little bit.  After all, I thought the mums would be safe because I have two of them that have lived in the same spot in pots for a YEAR untouched.  They are big ones, so, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping they grow big and woody and taste terrible!
See how little she left me?

While I was planting all the plants for the deer to eat for dinner on Sunday, I also dug up several volunteers and potted them.  The first two, L to R, are probably not going to make it, but the last 3 are Crape Myrtles and should be a beautiful fuchsia color if they came from the seeds of the nearest tree.  (Though I do have a row of white ones far away — just my luck — these will be white when I want them to be fuchsia!)

By |2016-04-14T02:45:08-05:00September 23rd, 2008|Blog, cuphea, deer, milk crates, mums, Sharing Nature's Garden|14 Comments
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