The Sun is Killing Me: Bloom day

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Bloom day - February 15, 2012

Spring is coming fast and furious to my garden this year! We have only had a few freezing nights all year and all the plants are about 2 weeks ahead of schedule. I finished trimming up the garden this last week, so bring on Spring!

Flowers already blooming:

Southern Grape Hyacinth:

Speaking of grape, the Texas Mt. laurel is beginning to bloom. The air is filling with that wonderful grape soda scent:

I'm really excited to see these this year as last year all the blooms froze off in our deep freeze. Not this year!:

The coral honeysuckle is blooming:

Narcissus:

Texas Star Jonquil:

Tulip Sylvestris. I really do love the nodding yellow heads of this one:

And Texas Quince:

Gorgeous!:

Happy Bloom day everyone!!

6 comments:

Rock rose said...: You have lots of lovely blooms for February. You reminded me that I forgot to go out and look at my Mountain Laurel that I worried myself over when we had the freeze this week. It will be first on my list to do this morning. Out of sight out of mind. Happy Bloom day.; February 15, 2012 at 6:05 AM
Lea s Menagerie said...: Lovely photos!
I think the Texas Quince is my favorite!
Happy Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day!
Lea
Lea's Menagerie; February 15, 2012 at 6:53 AM
sandy lawrence said...: Do your lovely yellow tulips return and bloom each year, or do you have to dig and refrigerate them to replant?; February 15, 2012 at 9:20 AM
Lee17 said...: Hi Sandy,

The yellow tulips come back year after year. No digging or chilling required. I love them!; February 15, 2012 at 10:29 AM
bookworm said...: Nice to see what is blooming in Texas. Nothing much yet in upstate NY but at least we don't have three feet of snow on the ground! Happy GBBD.; February 15, 2012 at 4:06 PM
scottweberpdx said...: I'm so jealous of your Texas Mountain Laurel! I just have plain old boring Laurel...would love to trade ;-); February 17, 2012 at 4:21 PM

Zone What?

Seattle to Olympia is Gardening Hardiness Zone 8.

Zone 8: -12 to -7 C (10 to 20 F)

Austin is Gardening Hardiness Zone 8-9

Zone 8: -12 to -7 C (10 to 20 F)
Zone 9: -7 to -1 C (20 to 30 F)

The USDA map was updated this year - 2012. Some zones have shifted from the previous version.

See the current map here:

http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html

Although both Austin and Seattle are in similiar zone hardiness, their climates could not be more different! Temps top out in the 80's in the summer in Seattle, where in Austin they can top 110 and stay in the 100's for months on end. The same plants that enjoy the Seattle maritime climate will fry in a second in the semi-desert that is Central Texas.

Learn about the heat zone map here:

http://www.ahs.org/publications/heat_zone_map.htm

Check out the AHS Heat Zone map here:

http://www.ahs.org/pdfs/05_heat_map.pdf

Past Garden Quotes of the Month

"The fair-weather gardener, who will do nothing except when the wind and weather and everything else are favorable, is never master of his craft."-- Henry Ellacombe
"The trouble with gardening is that it does not remain an avocation. It becomes an obsession." -- Phyllis McGinley
"The way of cultivation is not easy. He who plants a garden plants happiness." --Chinese Proverb
"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." --Greek proverb
'Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.' - Albert Einstein
"Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden." ~Orson Scott Card
"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large Garden." ~Abraham Cowley, The Garden, 1666
"A weed is but an unloved flower." ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"Last night, there came a frost, which has done great damage to my garden.... It is sad that Nature will play such tricks on us poor mortals, inviting us with sunny smiles to confide in her, and then, when we are entirely within her power, striking us to the heart." ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebookse
"Half the interest of a garden is the constant exercise of the imagination." ~Mrs. C.W. Earle, Pot-Pourri from a Surrey Garden, 1897 (Thanks, Jessica)
"When one of my plants dies, I die a little inside, too." ~Linda Solegato
"In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death." ~Sam Llewelyn
"Plant carrots in January and you'll never have to eat carrots." ~Author Unknown