Bloom Days are celebrated by May Dreams Gardens on the 15th of every month, and as far as I know, latecomers are welcome. If you’re perpetually late like me, you end up straddling Bloom Day on the 15th and the focus on leaves on the 16th that Pam at Digging hosts, so you can fudge the categories a bit.
The high temperature/humidity triggered a bloom flush from Passiflora ‘Sunburst’ that’s clambering up the cypress. Complicated floral architecture in citrus colors on tiny, maybe quarter-size flowers. (Again, thank you, Max!)
Most of these photos were taken at zero dark thirty yesterday morning. Arctotis is flush with blooms again, but more importantly, Leucadendron ‘Ebony’ survived the summer. I should know better than to declare survival status, since that’s usually the kiss of death but, knock wood, ‘Ebony’ made it to autumn.
I’ve cut lots of large bloom trusses from the Glaucium grandiflorum, seen in the background, to keep it from swamping its neighbors, like that small santolina. The glaucium has been in continuous bloom all summer. The cage on the left protects a white tigridia planted this fall from wayward corgi paws. Ein still ambles through here, even though I’ve planted up his familiar little path. That’s a mean trick for an old dog.
Another unabashed heat lover is the castor bean. Seedlings germinate spring through summer, which I continually weed out. In late August I let a few stand, and they quickly make size, flowers and seedpods.
Unstoppable Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ was cut down to the ground in later summer but would not be denied. This photo was taken probably hours before the 8-foot yucca in the background was removed.
Busy, busy. Yesterday I moved this Aloe ‘Johnson’s Hybrid’ from the container to the garden. The spilling effect of the flowers over the lip of the container instantly became a flopping effect on the ground. It’d be perfect at the top of a retaining wall.
I’ll probably grab a piece of it for a container again. I’m curious to see if it becomes more upstanding after a while in the ground.
A Mexican Grass Tree, Dasylirion longissimum, planted long ago, has been rescued from under the debris of the jacarandas in the front yard, cleaned up, and potted. There’s actually been quite a bit of shuffling recently and even some wholesale demolition. I’d been mulling over removing Yucca ‘Margarita’ for nearly a year (nee ‘Margaritaville’) and woke up yesterday with the conviction that it was time. ‘Margarita’ had a record five blooms this summer, and new rosettes of growth were coming in at increasingly bizarre angles.
A cistus was removed from where this pot now stands. The bulbine was planted a couple months ago. ‘Johnson’s Hybrid’ aloe was moved in this area as well. ‘Snowfire’ is a beautiful cistus and said to be relatively compact, but even so I was cutting it back quite a bit to keep it off Leucadendron ‘Winter Red.’ Asphodels were recently planted here as well, and from all outward appearances have opted once again to speedily meet their maker. That makes three attempts, so we have no more to say to each other. The silver mush on the left is a recently planted verbascum, one of three taken out by the hot, muggy weather.
Pennisetum ‘Skyrocket’ has taken over the yucca’s job of photobomber.
John Greenlee is having a Meadow Grass Festival October 24, a great opportunity to check out the best grasses for warm-winter areas.
I’ve been neglecting to get Bloom Day photos of Berlandiera lyrata. So fast into bloom from seed and loves it hot and dry.
A mahogany-colored osteospermum, planted last spring, took summer off and has just started to bloom this fall.
Xanthosoma “Lime Zinger’ appreciated being moved in deeper shade recently.
Bunch of little pots sheltering on the shadier east patio, with a small Euphorbia geroldii starting to bloom, a thornless crown-of-thorns.
Wrapping this up, grevilleas and salvias are in bloom but still waiting on the Mina lobata vine, which is just now showing flower buds.
I’ll try to be punctual if it’s in flower for November’s Bloom Day.
