The main Bloom Day story in my garden right now comes from the so-called Lilac Vine, Hardenbergia violacea.
I hope you don't mind a lot of pictures of it.
Lilac vine is a bit of a misnomer; Hardenbergia is scentless. Too bad!
I don't know if people grow this Australian vine where you are, but it's a relatively common sight in Bay Area gardens. I bought mine in a 1-gallon pot at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum last year. It's climbed a good 15 feet in my garden, and it's still growing.
The inflorescence is a raceme common in the Fabaceae--like wisteria. But unlike wisteria, Hardenbergia's vigorous growth probably won't tear your house apart if you let it go.
I have not let mine go. I prune it lightly all the time--at least once a month--to keep it thin and untangled on the trellis (which is really the cable railing for my deck). This plant will cover a fence or building with thick, heavy growth if you let it.
It needs some help twining so I've tied some twine around the deck post. Once the vine gets established in a coil around the post and trained on to the railing/trellis above, I'll cut away the twine.
It gets woody at the base, but it doesn't seem to bow the cable railing. Which is good, because I wouldn't want that.
The color purple is way over-represented in my garden.
And so is white.
White salvia.
White abutilon.
White tree dahlia.
White leaf margins.
White flecks on this cala
which has a bud (whose flower spathe is white).
Some other colors... I liked this pink Lewisia so much more when I bought it last summer. In December, this pink seems so...insincere. It's almost tacky.
And then I have a bunch of plants with one or two little flowers.
Little pictures of little flowers.
It warmed up a little bit by the time I finished getting my pictures together.
Link to last month's Bloom Day.
Link to May Dreams Gardens, a.k.a. Bloom Day Central.
