euryops

Plants that love cool spring evenings…

While Euryops (Euryops pectinatus), or yellow bush daisy, struggles through the dog days of summer here in Central Texas – it bursts forth with perky little blooms when nights and days are cooler here in late fall and early spring. 

In this raised bed with good soil, this one is in its third year — done with sleeping and creeping and leaping into a beautiful plant.  In addition to being showy right now, it’s clearly working hard to compete with the monster Franzosinii agave.  And with a mature height of 4-6 feet, it will likely soon have to find a new home somewhere else in the garden where it can be the focal point.

New bed well on its way…

On Friday, many of the plants for the new bed went into their new homes.

I wasn’t able to get several of the things on my list, but I did get most of them, so this is a good start.

And I was able to transplant all of the plants from the preious bed — either to more appropriate spaces to fit the design of the new bed, or into other beds where I had holes.

I’m also very excited that I was able to harvest from my own little volunteer ‘incubator’ of Lamb’s ears. They threw off seed from their blooms and new babies started growing in the playscape gravel next to the cutting garden. More than 20 of them were pulled from the gravel and put into the new bed. If you get out your magnifying glass, you can see them on the lowest level of the bed next to the Blackfoot daisies. The are the silver dots in this photo! What you can’t see just below the Lamb’s ears are several mounding Pink Texas Skullcaps, Skutellaria suffrutescens.

Visible only in this photo in the very back is my transplanted Butterfly Bush, Buddleja, which may or may not be ‘Black Knight.’ It is a deep royal purple and very vibrant. (In the process of researching the botanical name for my variety, I learned that is isn’t spelled Buddleia, which is how I’ve always spelled it, but Buddleja. Saw it first on Wikipedia and didn’t trust them as a horticultural resource, but then I confirmed it with Dave’s Garden, which I do trust! Thought that was interesting trivia.) Around the base of it, I transplanted several Lantana montevidensis, ‘Trailing Purple.’

The pinkish grass is Fireworks Purple Foutain Grass – Pennisetum rubrum ‘Fireworks.’ Next to it, Silver Ponyfoot, Dichondra argentea.

Up here is Artemesia powis castle which I hope will spill over the wall to mix with Blue Velvet Trailing Verbena, Verbena hybrida.
Obstructing your new here is a stick-like native persimmon. I was going to take it out, but I may prune it a bit and look at it for a while to see if it will fit in and can stay. Look closely behind it and you will see a Salvia GreggiiHot pink.’ Next to it are three Daimianita daisies, Chrysactinia mexicana. You can see them better below. Then on the lower level, almost out of sight, are 5 gray Santolinas, Santolina chamaecyarissus.

On the upper level there are three Euryops chrysanthemoides with some Sweet Potato vines Ipomoea batatas to surround it and trail down the wall around the Salvia Mesa ‘purple‘ and the Mexican Feather grasses Nasella tenuissima. Blackfoot daisies and Lamb’s ears in foreground. To the left of the Euryops will be a large blue Agave, a small boulder and some ground cover of Purple Wine Cups.

So, that’s it so far. I’m quite happy with this very xeric bed. Still searching for Mexican Oregano, LARGE Blue Agave, Color guard yucca, and a Queen Victoria agave or something similar with the upright form and strings! And another ground cover.

Behind on Bloom day!

Hard to believe it’s Bloom Day again!

And while I’m late today with my post, I wouldn’t miss out on the invitation extended to all garden bloggers by Carol of May Dreams Gardens to post photos of our garden blooms.

We’ve had a little fall here in Central Texas, and while the nights are cooler – high 50’s, the days are still upper 70’s and 80, even.

Many summer perennials and annuals are still blooming, but I’m starting to see a real change in the garden.

Leaves are turning yellow, blooms are slowing, and many plants are setting seed as most prepare to go dormant.

This huge Duranta is still full of blooms, but there are also many little yellow seeds along the blooms.
This Cassia is still standing tall, but the blooms are a much smaller portion of the bloom stalk than they used to be.
The Alyssum loves the cooler weather, though. No slowing down here.
The Marigolds in the garden are still hard at work, keeping the evil insects from the tomatoes!

The roses have been loving these warm days and cool nights. Maggie has lovely blooms like this all over.

And the Hibiscus in this big pot can seem to stop blooming. Was she doing that when we had company out here? No…. she waits until there isn’t anyone to see her! So she had to go in my post.
The Texas Betony in the back shade bed is growing like a weed all of a sudden.
This little corner off the back patio is blooming – lantana, Euryops, Loropetalum, and some cannas.
My bougainvillea, a passalong from Robin of Getting Grounded, likes the night air.
The front bed, with many of the same plants as the photo above, including Salvia and Cuphea, hasn’t slowed a bit.
The vines on the fence and the Mexican Mint Marigold are putting on a show.
My little mums just started blooming.
I found this Mexican birdbath last week and had to bring it home. She how nice it looks with the transplanted Agapanthus around it? And the Agapanthus says, ‘thanks for rescuing us from that evil Dakota-dog-girl!’
And the Turk’s Cap in the woods is quite happy. The Turk’s Cap in my garden bed is turning yellow and losing leaves rapidly. It’s been too wet for it as we’ve gotten some regular rains.

It’s interesting to note the change of seasons in the garden. Next week we are forecast to get down to 39 one night. Yikes! That will change things around here for sure!

Rain wreckage and a new day…lily, that is!

Today the first of my Daylilies opened in the lily bed. This is the Spider Miracle Lily — from Olallie Daylily Gardens.
Just another reminder that I am not in charge. I carefully researched color and bloom times to plan my daylily garden. This was supposed to be an AUGUST bloomer! Of course, it’s the first one to bloom in the whole bed.

According to their catalog, this is the biggest lily they have, measuring up to 8.5 inches wide and 32″ high. They are tall and regal, nad a beautiful lemon-lime color.
These little yellow blooms are sad today, though. The torrential rains we got yesterday (1.5 inches — yeah!) were a little hard on the Euryops — they were all lying on the ground this morning when I got up.
And look at poor Maggie. Trashed. Looks like someone had a heck of a party in the garden last night. Since I don’t think Maggie drinks beer, I’ll have to give her the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the storms. But with this drought, we needed the rain, even if it means a little mess in the garden.

Sweet things to come …

Wow. My Wisteria is gearing up for a big bloom up on the back fence. This is the most advanced of the blooms, coming onto the fuzzy buds that cover the branches today.

She’s intermingling with the Crossvine on the other side of the back fence. This is the first open bloom on that side, and there are thousands of little buds just waiting … waiting for RAIN.

Which we did NOT get today.
In spite of being promised rain. (well, technically not promised, but I foolishly hung my hat on the 30% chance in the forecast. I guess I only hear what I want to hear!)
This Euryops Daisy is very happy with our spring-like weather, and has burst into bloom.
And here are all the big plants in their new, albeit temporary, corner of the patio. I still have about 1/2 of the smaller plants inside the greenhouse and am bringing those out a few at a time.
And now the forecast for next week includes a 37-degree night.
Aargghhh!
But I also know if I had left everyone in the greenhouse the forecast would have been for 91 degrees like it was last week.
[I know, I’m NOT in charge!]
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