growLively

Bees on the Passion Vine

It was a beautiful Sunday and the bees were out makin' hay while the sun was shining. I have a lavender passion vine that is still blooming like crazy right now and the bees are much appreciative. I try to have plants blooming in my garden as close to year-round as I can so the bees have something to feed on. It comes in handy when you need them around to pollinate your veggies or fruit trees. Just thought you guys might enjoy this photo.

'Four Seasons' Viola...My new fave...

These are the cutest violas! The 'Four Seasons' Viola series is a mounding/spreading type of viola that has a bit better heat tolerance on average. They don't trail quite to the degree that 'Purple Rain' does, but they really fill out a container or basket nicely. They produces masses of small blooms. This is definitely my favorite new series of viola to come along in a while...and now just happens to be the perfect time to plant them.

Viola 'Four Seasons White & Pink Wing'- stunning. A lovely combination of white and lavender/pink. Tons of blooms.

Viola 'Four Seasons Purple & Bronze' - a very unique color combination, love it. The plants look really full.

Viola 'Four Seasons Blue & Yellow' - a more traditional color combo, but it looks like it's going to bloom gangbusters.

What to plant right now...

This is what I planted this weekend....

Still time to get broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and other cole crops planted. Don't forget cool season herbs like dill, fennel and cilantro. Chard, sorrel, lettuce and spinach can go in the ground as well. In this bed, I ripped up a few 'Golden Mama' Tomato plants on their last leg. They were still covered with fruit, but I'm going to make green tomato pickles with what I harvested from them.

This is also the perfect time to plant pansies, violas and other cool season color like Iceland Poppies, foxglove, snapdragons and the like. They will perform much better next spring if you get them in the ground before the first frost (Avg. here is Nov. 17th). I usually do a combo of purples, blues and whites. But every once in a while I shake things up with some orange! I know...livin' on the edge, eh? LOL. So this year's cool season combo is blue and orange, with some purples here and there. (Didn't have the heart to pull out the pretty little gomphrena in the photo...maybe next week). I also planted up some hanging baskets with 'Purple Rain' trailing pansy...fabulous!

Passion flower - Passiflora violacea

I planted a small container of this Passiflora violacea 'Lavender Lady' in the middle of summer. It took off like gangbusters and has spread about twenty feet...along the chain link fence, up the hackberry, you name it! In the photo, it is commingling with some blackberries. It's covered in blooms right now which a welcome sight in the dreary rainy weather we've been having. I'll post some photos of the sky vine in bloom tomorrow.

 

Aggie Cotton in bloom...

I'm not an Aggie, but I do love me some Aggie Cotton, Gossypium hirsutum. This great heirloom annual tends to come and go. Folks forget about it for a while and  you won't really see it in the nurseries for a few years, then it shows back up again in small quantities. Just like all that bad 80's fashion we're seeing right now! Well, except that's really really bad...Aggie cotton happens to be very, very pretty.

The flowers and foliage are reminiscent of a burgundy leafed hardy hibiscus with lovely pink and cream flowers. The flowers are followed by small cotton bolls that add interest and texture to the garden. The burgundy foliage gives you some really nice foliage contrast mixed with salvias, ornamental grasses and other annuals like angelonia and lantana. It's blooming in my garden now and through the fall will reach about three to four feet tall.

Butterfly Ginger is blooming...

Yay! The first blooms on my the butterfly ginger Hedychium coronarium, have finally appeared. This is a tropical perennial native to India and a cousin of the culinary ginger, Zingiber officinale. Plants reach about five feet tall here and can be planted in part shade (morning sun/afternoon shade, or dappled sun throughout the day) and plants like lots of moisture. They are also nice in containers. Plants will die down to the ground in our area, zone 8, but come back up the following year. The fragrance is to die for. Plant some near your patio or where you can enjoy the fragrance.

Lovely.

August Garden Lovelies...

Yes, you can actually have some beauty in the August garden, despite the scorching heat! Here are a few of my August garden lovelies...

A fragrant pale cream daylily I've forgotten the cultivar name for and a weeping dwarf crapemyrtle entwined with sky vine (Thunbergia grandiflora) 

Echinacea 'Sunset' flanked with Angelonia 'Serena Purple', 'Tamora' Rose and Salvia guaranitica 'Black & Blue'

 

Salvia 'Mystic Spires' and dwarf Philippine lily

 

Hummingbird sightings!

The hummingbirds finally started showing up last week. Yay! I was really surprised at how late they finally made it to our garden this year. I have lots of plants in the front garden they can feed on, such as the Rattlebox tree in the photo, Salvia guaranitica 'Black & Blue', Angelonia, Autumn sage, Salvia 'Mystic Sprires' and so on. We also hang a feeder or two near the front door. We currently have two females that are either competing for the turf or are youngin's from the same nest. I think they are nesting in a large crapemyrtle next to the house. They put on a show each morning at about 8am, where they will zip around the yard together. On Sunday morning, I came face to face with one.

Hummingbirds will make visual associations with people, especially if they see you around their feeding area consistently for about a month. They you might find they'll come right up to you or feed in your presence without being afraid. Good times. I tried getting some photos of them on Sunday, but couldn't get a clear shot. Will keep trying...

A bright spot in the August garden...Philippine Lily

August is usually when I go on a "gardening vacation"...it's just so darn hot here! (Although we have been getting some unexpected and very welcome rain the last few days.) Because I'm just not going to do a whole lot of work out there right now, I plant a few perennials that I know will look great in the heat and drought, even if for just the month of August. My favorite "August only" bloomer is the Philippine Lily (Lilium formosanum). It looks just like an Easter lily and has the most wonderful fragrance. The bright white blooms look fantastic in the evening and at night, so plant in areas where you might sit outside at those times. Once established they don't take a lot of water (in fact they'll rot on you with too much), can be planted in full sun and look great with other late summer bloomers like salvias and Mexican petunias.They'll bloom for about three weeks, which may not seem long but is totally worth it. Plants usually start blooming the very end of July and bloom through mid-August, in the DFW area.

Philippine lilies are a bit obscure, so it can sometimes be difficult to find the tubers. Once you have them, they can be multiplied by division of the tubers or the many seed the plants produce. The typical variety grows large, up to about 5 or 6 feet tall. The one I have in my garden is a rare dwarf variety that gets about 3 to 3 1/2 feet tall only. I procured this through my plant geek network and haven't actually seen the dwarf readily available for sale many places. But I'm going to collect a bunch of seed from it in a few weeks and we'll start propagating it up at North Haven Gardens.

Summer Garden Blooms...

It's blazing hot here....not just blazing hot, but extremely humid. It's when this muggy heat hits that it becomes really easy to abandon the garden! Nevertheless, with proper planning, you can still have lovely blooms in the garden through the dog days of summer. Only the tough ones make it my summer garden because they are not going to get any pampering...

An almost white fragrant daylily...the variety name is escaping me. Thunbergia grandiflora (sky vine) blooming the earlier this year than I've ever seen it...

 

Huge blooms of bronze fennel...second flush of blooms from rose 'Perle d'Or'.