Bloom Day, October 2014

Did you know that every month on the 15th, garden bloggers post photos of what's in bloom in their gardens? Carol at May Dreams Gardens is the host for this meme, and although I don't regularly notice that the 15th is approaching until it's too late (and I see other Bloom Day posts appearing), this is probably the last chance for blooms before winter sets in so I gave an extra effort.

Which meant getting outside on a damp, dreary day as evening approached, trying to get decent photos in limited light. I didn't think there would be many blooms out there to be honest, but once I got started I found more than I expected. The Verbena bonariensis above is such a favorite, blooming from early summer until frost. What else is in bloom?

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Not so fast -- I have something else to say about Verbena bonariensis...

Powdery mildew! This plant always gets the mildew by the end of the summer, and since I'm not a big fan of spraying (although I did apply the milk solution a couple of times this year) I just have to put up with it. Does anybody else have this problem with this plant?

Let's talk marigolds:

A hybrid I got from Nan at Hayefield. (If you love garden photos, please check out her site!) This one was much taller than I expected, and didn't start blooming until late September. Had a few unstriped blooms on one of the two plants:

These yellow and red flowers look fantastic with the little feverfew volunteers that are blooming now on tiny, six-inch plants:

The tall marigolds flopped over (or their brittle branches snapped) bringing these two sets of blooms together. Very nice!

Also in the walkway is Persicaria 'Painters Palette':

And my lion's tail has started a second flush of blooms:

I don't expect to see much more from this one before a freeze kills it. Sometimes I hate planting annuals (or tender perennials that act as annuals for me).

Moving away from the walkway toward the south side of the house (near the cactus beds) I see that the monkshood is still going strong:

And that one of my several Ruellia is still producing blooms:

My neighbor put the Ruellia I gave her indoors as a houseplant and said that it's been going crazy with blooms. I never thought to try this, but think I will this fall.

Now a few Salvias, starting with Salvia greggii 'Wild Thing':

Salvia elegans or "Pineapple Sage" struggled for me after a late planting. It's blooms are just starting:

Too bad the hummingbirds missed this one!

Salvia sclarea or "Clary Sage", blooming again for some reason:

I'll have several of this biennial blooming in the spring, as I let it reseed almost wherever it wants to.

Salvia leucantha or "Mexican bush sage" also blooms too late for most hummingbirds to see it:

This year the blooms on this plant are all starting downward but then curving up. Interesting!

It's not all salvias over here -- there are some Rudbeckia triloba still in bloom:

These are really late because the deer pruned them back for me earlier this year.

Growing under that rose that I recently removed is Sedum 'Vera Jameson', which the deer did not find behind the Artemesia and Russian Sage:

Moving around to the back, a late Gailardia bloom shows that not everything I planted here was smothered by weeds:

The pink blooms are technically weeds, but who doesn't love Persicaria (of any type)?

Some Agastache blooms remain:

How many hundreds of small, tubular blooms did this plant produce over the summer?

Hyacinth bean sort of played out, but still attractive:

And late canna blooms, a beacon for any migrating hummingbirds as they hurry south:

Texas Green Eyes (Berlandiera betonicifolia or Berlandiera texana) has bloomed all summer long, such a nice surprise:

And another surprise: the deer stopped eating my new butterfly bush!

(The first surprise was that they were eating it at all. The second surprise was that they stopped.)

Who knew that tansy would flower for so long too?

Getting close to the end now...

I would never really call these blooms, but the castor bean never disappoints:

Even a couple of the Datura inoxia that will be in this garden forever now (because of copious seed spillage) are still flowering:

And that's it for blooms in my garden this month.

Notice that I didn't include any photos of "blooms" from the grasses. If I had, this post would have been twice as long!

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