Wishing you a Happy 4th of July.
Hope you can spend it in your garden!
May showers also bring May flowers…
I know why Carol of May Dreams Gardens dreams of May. We’ve had just that kind of May this year. Full of sunshine AND rain – giving all our parched gardens a good long drink before the relentless summer takes its toll. Garden bloggers around the globe join Carol on the 15th of each month to share what’s blooming in their gardens. Come take a stroll with me and see what catches my eye in the garden today.
This beautiful ditch lily, a passalong from Lori, of Gardener of Good and Evil, who literally dug it up from a ditch in Wisconsin and brought it back to me in a bucket in the back seat of her car. That’s true gardening friendship!
Some short little zinnias that are filling in small spaces in my cottage-style front path bed.
Wine cups in full force in my rock path-thats-no-longer-a-path because of the wine cup!
I’m not wild about the pineapple guava tree itself – rather boring foliage. But these little blooms are to die for.
I’m always in awe of lamb’s ears blooms – they are so low and so understated and then their blooms shoot straight into the sky and make the boldest of statements.
One of my absolute favorite salvias, indigo spires, reaches out it’s long, lanky plumes.
If you think I’m in love with the pineapple guava blooms – this one knocks my socks off. It’s a Mexican Bird of Paradise, and loves our heat and drought here. Tough and wispy at the same time, one of my favorite combos.
And I couldn’t leave out the esperanza, or yellow bells, that grow all over Central Texas. They, too, are native to Mexico.
Daylilies I just can’t get rid of! I’ve dug them up twice and they keep coming back, so now they get to stay. They don’t fit in and clash in the bed they’re in, but they bloom for such a short time that I just pretend it’s part of the plan!
And finally, these gray santolina make the most beautiful button blooms – tiny little golden globes.
What’s blooming in your garden today?
Purple plumes peeking out in the spring garden
As the temperatures creep up to early summertime highs here in Central Texas , irises, salvias and other purple plumes are putting on a pageant in my garden.
Maybe I like the purple and blue hues so much in my garden because they seem to cool off our scorching heat.
At least they give the impression that it’s cooler in the garden.
And because blue hues on the color wheel make things seem to recede, they also make my garden seem bigger.
One of my very favorites is Indigo Spires. It’s tall, deep purple blooms sway in the breeze and make a real statement.
Luckily for me, the salvias I’m collecting are safe from our hungry, grazing deer.
This catmint was a new addition to my garden last spring and it’s been a great performer. It easily survived last summer and stayed evergreen all winter. No cats here in my garden, but I’d recommend this a a hardy Central Texas perennial.
Mealy blue sage — which grows wild in the fields in Texas — seems very happy in my front garden and is spreading every year.
My pass-along irises, Amethyst Flame, from Pam of Digging, are still blooming and going strong after weeks.
Little pink and purple pretties are mixed into this whimsical windowbox arrangement.
My larkspur — from seeds passed along several years ago from Zanthan Gardens — are just beginning to bloom. I love that feathery foliage.
These tradescantia, or spiderwort, are finally spreading a little in the back bed. I hear they can be invasive, but there’s plenty of room for them, so I keep enouraging them to grow more!
The rock path in the back has 4 or 5 different purple blooms intermingling among the Oklahoma flagstone, decomposed granite and river rock. Homestead verbena, 2 kinds of winecup and more all make great neighbors.
This is the easement beside our neighbor’s property – filled with wild native prairie verbena. It’s not in my garden, but I can see it from my garden … kinda like you can see Russia…oh, nevermind!
While I lost some of the salvia ‘May night,’ the ones that survived last summer are going strong and attracting lots of bees.