Bloom Day: September, 2015

Spring-like fall weather has brought a few surprise flowers, including a few blossoms on Clematis montana 'Freda,' Callistemon, and an unidentified Rhododendron:

 

Several other things are blooming around the garden, some seemingly with a bit more vigor now that this summer's unusual heat has faded.

Bloom Day: August, 2015

A belated roundup of a few things blooming in the garden:

Salvia patens cv. with Agave parryi var. truncata in the background:

 



Lobelia tupa has been enjoying the heat with nary a wilt or pause in blooming:

 



Geranium 'Rozanne' is a bit drought resistant but still needs some summer water to keep the profusion of blooms from stalling:

 



A red flowered yucca! Not really - just the flowers of Campsis x tagliabuana 'Madame Galen' peaking through the leaves of Yucca recurvifolia 'Margaritaville'.

 



 Coreopsis 'Mercury Rising' keeps on blooming and blooming:

 

A Dahlia cultivar the name of which I have lost track. This one has been getting by with surprisingly little summer water, although the dry weather has delayed and limited blooming a bit:



 



Bloom Day: July 2015

The hot, dry, early summer in Seattle has changed the bloom times for several plants this year. Normally I would have dahlias aplenty by now, but the dry conditions have stunted them. Other plants which would still be blooming normally have finished early or failed to appear. Here's a sample of a few things which are in bloom despite the odd weather:

Crocosmia 'Lucifer':

 

Lantana camara 'Miss Huff':

 

Lilium 'Scheherezade':

 

 

Rogersia cv. (inexplicably still in bloom - this should have finished months ago):

 

 Agapanthus 'Peter Pan':

 

Cestrum 'Orange Peel':

 

Dichroa febrifuga:

 

Trachelospermum jasminoides:

 

Campsis x tagliabuana 'Madame Galen':

 

Bloom Day: June 2015

Just a few of the things blooming in the garden. I'm limited to what my camera phone can capture while I'm contemplating repairing my good camera or replacing it (the cost is nearly the same), after an unfortunate meeting between the camera and the floor.

Aloe striatula from Cistus Nursery survived last winter's mild temperatures quite well and is now 3ft / 1m tall, with two bloom spikes. This aloe has undergone a recent taxomomic revision and now more properly known as Aloiampelos striatula.

 

Four foot / 1.3m long inflorescence of Nolina sp. I think it is Nolina texana, but I am not certain:

 

 

Phlomis russeliana, a staple of my June garden, where it flourishes without watering and tolerates moderate shade and neglect:

 

 

Erigeron karvinskianus tumbling down a wall onto Acaena inermis 'Purpurea.'



 

 

Ah, June!

 

Thanks to May Dreams Gardens for coordinating the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

 

Bloom Day: May 2015

Slightly belated bloom day posting due to work and travel. A few noteworthy blooms appropriate to May, starting with a staple of Northwest gardens, the hybrid rhododendron. This is Rhododendron 'Lee's Dark Purple,' but I find it to be only a medium purple:

 



It's the beginning of verbena season. Here are the first Verbena bonariensis blooms peeking through Brachyglottis greyi. The flowers will continue for several months until frost.

 



The interesting, tiny flowers of Helwingia chinensis 'Narrow Leaf Form' appear on the middle of the leaves. The adjective for this is epiphyllous.

 



Another May staple of Northwest gardens, Allium 'Purple Sensation'. I usually have a dozen or more stalks each spring, but this year I sadly only have one. The mild winter was strangely hard on most of my bulb and tuber plants.

 



More to come in June. Enjoy your spring! 

Bloom Day: April 15

Spring blooms!

One of my favorite spring-flowering shrubs, Prostanthera rotundifolia, is just starting to come into bloom after teasing for months with developing buds:

 

Fairy bells Disporum longistylum 'Green Giant' just starting to open:

 

 

Purplish-black flowers of kohuhu, Pittosporum tenuifolium. Supposedly these are highly scented but I couldn't detect anything:

 



 

 

Silver new growth and orange flowers on the butterfly bush Buddleia 'Orange Sceptre':

 

 Pacific Northwest native Tellima grandiflora, fringe cups:

Bloom Day: March 2015

Bloom day images are a bit delayed this week due to record setting rains, with nearly two inches falling in my area in a single day. Spring is the time of flowering shrubs in my yard:

The sweetly scented sweet olive (Osmanthus x burkwoodii):

The rains took a bit of toll on it:

Northwest staple (and potential invasive species) English laurel (Prunus laurocerasus), looking a bit like bottlebrush flowers with its many fuzzy anthers and other floral bits:

The so-called "red neck rhododendron" (Daphniphyllum macropodum) is nearly in bloom. I love the red color and the bold, horizontal leaves:

Berberidaceae represents itself well in early spring with mahonias and barberries. Here is the low-growing low Oregon grape (Mahonia nervosa) with spending purple winter foliage contrasting nicely with the yellow blooms:

An evergreen barberry, Berberis replicata:

 

Northwest staple Oregon grape, Mahonia aquifolium. Most onlinen resources get the height of this plant all wrong, suggesting it only grows to 6 feet / 2 meters. In fact in can grow three times that height in the right conditions. It develops great wine colored foliage in full sun during the winter, which fades back to green just as the bright yellow flowers emerge.



 

Viburnum x pragense never seems to stop blooming:

 

 

Pieris japonica cultivars also have along bloom period. The bumblebees seem to love them.

 

And vines! This Clematis armandii. It was supposed to be the 'Apple Blossom' cultivar which has a lovely peachy-pink blush, but unfortunately it appears it was mislabeled and is merely the white-flowered species. Still lovely though.

Vinca minor is much derided as a mundane groundcover, but the blossoms are lovely up close, and the plants are evergreen and tough as nails in dry shade once established.

Also blooming but refusing to be photographed: Cymbalaria muralis, Viola labradorica, and a few other small-flowered early perennials.