Bloom Day - December 15th, 2011

December bloom day via the 12 Days of Christmas:

On the First day of Christmas, my true love sent to me..
One succulent wreath on the garden gate:



closer:



On the Second day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
Two ornament adorned agaves:



I don't have any conifers in my central Texas garden, so agaves get decorated instead. Closer:



On the Third day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
3 pink geranium blooms. The geraniums are looking fabulous now that the weather is cool:



On the Fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
4 new limestone blocks under my garden gate. I replaced the mud and clay with some natural limestone blocks and gravel:



On the Fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
5 petals on the globemallow bloom. The globemallow is still blooming and looking wonderful!:



On the Sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
6 lemon blossoms. The Meyer lemon is blooming crazy right now! The outside entryway to the house is thick with the scent of citrus blossoms. Yummmm. :)



On the Seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
7 narcissus pushing through the earth. The narcissus are popping up all around the garden:



On the Eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
8 blackfoot daisies. These are still blooming even though we had a freeze last week:



On the Ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
9 pots of succulents snuggled in the greenhouse. With a heating lamp to keep them warm and toasty:



On the Tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
10 sets of cynthia tulips. I planted these within the new limestone retaining wall flower bed I built last week. Come spring, there should be a trail of yellow and red striped tulips blooming here:



On the Eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
11 icicles on the fountain during the first freeze on Dec. 7th. Right on time:



On the Twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me...
12 drops of rain on the xmas cactus. It has been raining lightly all week! Swoot! After the hottest summer ever recorded in any state in the history of the US, this rain is The. Best. Christmas present. Ever.:



Happy Holidays Everyone!!

Bloom Day November 15th 2011 - a day late.

Well, contrary to my previous post it has not frozen in the garden yet this year. Yay! Just a freeze warning or two so far. And, AND it rained in the garden yesterday! Wooooo!!

The flowers seemed to perk up as the rain was approaching. Somehow they just KNEW it was gonna rain.

Copper Canyon Daisy. I very nearly lost these this year, but they made it through (barely) and are in bloom:



The coral nymph salvia is blooming:



And the Hot Lips salvia is back to blooming red and white now that it has cooled off(the colors change based on the temperature outside - in the dead of summer the flowers are fully red):



The paintbrush is still blooming and you can see the gulf muhly with its burgandy seed heads in the background:



Rock Penstemon still blooming and still looking fabulous:



Damianita and blackfoot daisy blooming crazy now that the weather has cooled down:



Leadwort plumbago blooming its gorgeous blue blooms. I planted about six small 4-inch pots of these several years back in the hopes they would carpet the ground. No luck. They just kind of stay the same size. I think it has just been way too hot and way too dry for these. If I want them to cover the entire area, I will need to buy a couple flats of them and plant them close together. They are still pretty, though:



Texas Mountain Sage. I had to replace this one this fall. The other one I had dried up and I even had it planted in the shade. I am quite fond of its heart-shaped leaves:



And last but not least, the morning glory is still growing and blooming beautifully each morning:



Happy Bloom day everyone!

Freeze Warning?!?

Freeze warning for tonight?!? WTF. It's still early November and I don't have the greenhouse set up yet. It doesn't normally freeze until the first week of December! *sigh* Well, I'm pretty sure this motorcycle can handle a freeze, so out it goes and in go the plants. :D

New hanging baskets

I picked up these nifty cone-shaped hanging baskets to replace the basic plastic ones I had before. I have had the worst time finding pretty hanging baskets in Austin. Back in Seattle, I could find really pretty wooden hanging baskets everywhere; but here? Nope. Nothing of the kind to be found. Why is that?

Here are the new baskets. Love:

Bloom Day October 15th, 2011

Autumn has finally arrived in Austin! The temps are down into the 90's most days which is such a huge relief. And we received between 1-2 inches of rain earlier this week and that totally perked up the plants that made it through the hell that was summer this year.

I was able to get outside and trim up the front garden:



See that rose in the bottom left corner of the pic there? I swore I wouldn't plant anything this fall due to the drought, but the first knockout rose I had planted in early spring fried over the summer. I found a replacement on clearance at Lowes and decided to go ahead and take a chance and plant a new one. Hopefully it will make it this time.

This yellow knockout rose DID make it though the summer, however. I really can't believe it. It's blooming again since it rained the other day:



The rock penstemon is still blooming. This is one tough plant. It flowered all throughout the summer even though it dwells right up front in the hellstrip:



The wright's skullcap is blooming again. It was pretty crispy looking over the dead of summer, but it made it though and it's perking right up, now:



Texas bluebells are still blooming, although they are looking a bit scraggly at this point:



The lantana is looking great:



The batface cuphea are also looking stupendous:



Fall is yellowbells time. They are ginormous:



Speaking of ginormous, the purple passionflower has completely overtaken the side garden:



Normally, the gulf fritillary butterflies mow this vine down and keep it under control. Not this year. Awful drought = little to no butterflies, which equal 'eat the garden' passionflower vine. On the plus side, this vine does have gorgeous flowers:



The blue mistflower has spread pretty good as well:



There are few things that have come back to life now that weather has cooled down a bit that I had in pots in the shade. One is Torenia:



And another is Bishop of Landaff Dahlia:



These asters are newly potted and I think they look very pretty next to the succulents behind them:



The rains kicked the rainlilies into gear. Yellow rainlilies:



And last, but not least, the yellow paintbrush is blooming again:




That's it folks. Happy Autumn bloom day!

Bloom day - Sept 15, 2011

Wow. So I skipped August bloom day, cause hell, I wasn't going outside even to take pictures when it was 105 degrees outside. No. Thank. You. I mean, christ, we are at 85 days at or above 100 degrees this year. The old record was 69 in 1925. We totally shredded that record this year. Just look at these numbers:








Due to this heat all summer, not much is left blooming. I do have quite a few scraggly salvias that the hummingbirds are loving right now. Here is a coral nymph salvia growing where the sprinklers hit:



There are a few Texas bluebells hanging on as well as some scraggly looking chocolate flower:



The turks cap is actually looking pretty good and the hummers are loving it:



The oxblood lilies were blooming crazy after watering day:





Some yellow rain lilies popped up after a watering as well. You can see them nestled amongst the tough and sparsely flowering leadwort blue plumbago:



One of the plants that has done really well all summer regardless of the harsh, dry conditions has been the Datura. Here it is blooming last night. Too bad I don't have smell-o-vision for these as they completely filled the garden with their thick, heady scent:



closer:



Well, that's it folks. Now excuse me while i hunt down some more chicken bones for another rain dance....