What have I got?
It's the middle of the day, and pictures in full-sun (or rather, half-sun/half-shadow) are never the best, but I'm going out tonight, so it's now or never for whoreticulture.
Up on the roof, a couple plants in 'the hummingbird garden' outside my bedroom window are doing well.
I regret not taking a picture of the Lupinus albifrons (Silver Bush Lupine) sooner. It's nice now, but it was even better last week. It smells strongly of grape soda.
Also in the hummingbird garden: cuphea, angelonia, salvia, calibrocha. The cuphea is most popular with the hummers right now. Previously, it was an unknown pink-flowering cultivar of Salvia microphylla, but that plant doesn't have any flowers on it right now.
These callibrocha are recent arrivals, obviously.
The angelonia (white flowers) has too many flowers, and I don't like it.
What's that, you ask? Is that my neighbor's house in the background? Why, yes it is! I know how people go crazy for pictures of it (literally, in one person's case). Of course, I always answer the clamor of my readers!
Wood is literally falling off his house now, and landing in my yard. So far, no damage to my garden. How sad.
The Tecomaria capensis is resprouting. Should I spray Round-Up on it? Would that kill it? I've never used an herbicide before.
The wisteria is coming up really fast. Not as fast as the bamboo, but fast.
Now, if you don't mind, people: this post is about what's blooming in my garden...
I missed the boat on showing you this flower. It was quite amazing last month, but I think Guy was taking a nap when I took my Bloom Day pictures so I couldn't get up here then.
Now, down in to the garden...
The Scarlet Runner Bean is a flower-making machine.
And the Tibouchina is the bloomingest thing I have right now, although you can count the total number of flowers it has.
They look like this.
This is CA native cultivar Mimulus 'Trish'; I just bought and planted it yesterday.
There's some yarrow over here.
I re-did this area last weekend. I used to have a Ribes in that half-barrel, but it got too much sun when the neighbor whacked his yard, so I made the Ribes change places with Philadelphus lewisii which wasn't getting enough sun. This will be much better for both plants, and the garden as a whole. But not until next year.
I have a couple small pots of guara that I keep moving around, and flowers on the cucumber behind it.
This Lewisia was an impulse buy last week. I have no idea what to do with it.
Also blooming heavily but not pictured: Madia elegans, Calycanthus occidentalis, Brugmansia, Fremontodendron 'San Gabriel', Salvia spathacea, tomatoes, lemons, huckleberry, an orange flowering succulent I don't know, and Symphoricarpos. I'm astonished how much the hummingbirds like to visit the snowberry flowers!
With odd, stray blooms also not shown: a small clematis, some cineraria, a primrose, salal, abutilon (either recently pruned hard, or recently planted), Trichostema lanatum, Nolana paradoxa, and a very small version of trailing Rudbeckia growing in a hanging basket.
I hope I'm not forgetting something...
Link to Jul-07 Bloom Day.
11 comments:
You have so much blooming right now, and so much I've never seen before. It's always a bit of an education for a midwestern gardener like me to visit.
Thanks for participating in Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day again!
Carol at May Dreams Gardens
Yes, thank you for participating. Thank you for coming to my blog and your kind words! It really perked me up to have people sympathizing with me. I truly appreciate it. and then, I came over here and had a wonderful visit. It was great to see someplace where the flowers are beautiful and not burning up in over 100 degree heat. I really like the tibouchina and the lewisia. I'll have to check out how they would like it here. I have purple hyacinth beans this year rahter than scarlet runner beans. They are also flower machines, and I totally forgot to put them on my post. Dang. Both are wonderful things and the hummingbirds here love them.
Love the scarlet runner beans (I have some also) and the Tibouchina with the sky background is a stunning photo. Lewisia is gorgeous and a rock garden plant if that helps. I don't have any as I think it is too ...well, just wrong here! Oh, and love the neighbor's house. Hoping to see more of it! LOL
Your garden is so exotic and fun to visit, Chuck - oh that Tibouchina!
My callibrachoa drowned, salvias rotted, and tomatoes are bleh, but at least I can grow gaura.
Your neighbor's yard is scary! I've never used anything like Round-Up, just horticultural vinegar. I heard that people use plastic gloves and disposable brushes to paint R/Up directly onto poison ivy, to avoid getting the spray around. And if you kill a plant and its roots are entwined with a good plant, I think you might damage the good one. This is all hearsay - no experience.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Your neighbor's garden is simply lovely. Thanks so much for sharing.
I like the Lewisia. I might be able to grow it here if I make sure I have a well drained soil. I saw some at the Betty Ford Garden in Vail Co.
Roundup will put a hurting on the Tecomaria. It would take several applications to kill a woody shrub like that. Just maybe you could kindly suggest to your neighbor that a minimum of contol on his part at this point will prevent a repeat of the bursting at the seams public health hazard.
I love the tibouchina against the blue sky - that is a stunning photo. I usually grow that in a pot during the summer when I can find it. I've never been able to overwinter it. :(
The tibouchina is a plant you see a lot of in here (whole Bay Area in fact) because of its useful size, abundant flowers, and generally good performance under many local conditions. I know many people who are absolutely sick of it. That happens once something starts turning up in public street plantings and office parks (before then even). I felt some ambivalence about this plant myself when I bought it a couple years ago.
But I do like it, and I think they still have it planted around the outside of chi-chi, trendsetting decorators Living Green; if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. I like to have some plants that are common in my garden. I'm not a "collector" gardener; gardens full of rare exotic treasures make me tired. I like things that are familiar and comfortable.
Some other plants in the Tibouchina's family (Melastomaceae) are slowly making their way into the trade, but I think they're hard to distinguish.
Anyhow, that's just a bit of local background on a plant that has some extra connotations here that one might not be aware of in a different area.
Plants are funny like that.
Realling digging the callibrocha this year, too...I got one as a pinch-hitter to replace a failed trailing annual whose name I cannot recall. The calli took off and really out-performed the other plant by miles! As for your neighbor, can you really trespass and kill his stuff? I don't have roundup experience, either...only chemical I still use is "Preen" on my rock garden that has the alligator in it. I've always wanted to try scarlet runner bean, now I absolutely will next spring! "Trish" is lovely, too...you had a great Bloom Day!
Oh, and the Silver Bush Lupine! OMG...do you think it would at least re-seed for me way up here in the "frozen tundra"?! The smell of grape soda would be wicked cool...do bees seem to like it a lot?
"As for your neighbor, can you really trespass and kill his stuff?"
Not if I have any moral or ethical concerns.
As for the lupine, you could have it as an annual for sure. They're short lived plants, even in Cali where they're native. It's much more beautiful than my pictures would lead you to believe. I'll try to get you some better shots. I haven't had many bees since spring when this plant wasn't flowering, so hard to say how they'd feel about it.
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