May 15th, 2007
GBBD 200705: May 2007
Larkspur in May at Zanthan Gardens.
Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to tell her what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.
Despite the list of flowers, the garden is mostly green this time of year. A lot less is flowering than in April. The only flowers in any number today are the rose ‘Red Cascade’, two different four o’clocks, batchelor buttons, clammy weed and some larkspur. Everything else has just a flower or two, fading under the last few day’s 90 degree temperatures. All I’m doing in the garden now is pulling out spent flowers and digging up bulbs.
May 15, 2007
This is the fourth day of temperatures hitting 90 degrees–and the spring flowers are drying up and falling over.
- Asclepias curassavica
- Centaurea cyanus ‘Black Magic‘
- chili pequin
- Commelinantia anomala (false day flower)
- Consolida ambigua (larkspur)
- Coriandrum sativum (cilantro/coriander)
- crinum
- Engelmann daisy
- Hibiscus syriacus
- Lathyrus odoratus ‘Regal Robe’ (sweet pea)
- Lathyrus odoratus ‘Velvet Elegance’ (sweet pea)
- Lavandula heterophyla ‘Goodwin Creek Grey‘
- Lilium LA Hybrid ‘Spirit’ (one flower)
- Lupinus texensis (a couple of faded flowers)
- Meyer lemon (rebloom)
- Mirabilis jalapa pink
- Mirabilis jalapa RHS red
- nandina
- Nemophila insignis (mostly gone to seed)
- Nigella damascena (one flower)
- Oenothera speciosa (evening primrose)
- Oxalis crassipes
- Oxalis triangularis
- Polanisia dodecandra (full bloom)
- Pyrrhopappus multicaulis Texas dandelion
- rose ‘Blush Noisette‘
- rose ‘Red Cascade’
- rose ‘Scott’s Ruston’
- rose ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison”
- rose ‘Mermaid’
- Salvia farinacea ‘Indigo spires’
- Salvia greggii ‘Raspberry’ (one flower)
- Sedum album (white stonecrop)
- tomato
- Trachelospermum jasminoides (Confederate jasmine)
- Tradescantia pallida (purple heart)
- Verbena canadensis
- viola
I’ve been keeping (rather erratic) records on what blooms in Zanthan Gardens since 1995 in the In Bloom Calendar.
by M Sinclair Stevens
May 15th, 2007
My garden is mostly green right now too, with a few early-summer flowers opening up. My daylilies are going to be the main attraction in a few more days. ‘Best of Friends’ is already going strong, and the rest have buds.
It will be interesting to see what kind of summer we have this year, after such a long, mild spring.
May 15th, 2007
I’m wondering the same thing as Pam. What’s summer going to be like?
There’s not much happening at my house other than green right now, too. Summer flowers haven’t really started yet, and spring flowers are pretty much done.
May 15th, 2007
That is still quite a respectable list of plants in flower. Quite a few of them will be flowering in my garden later this year.
My garden is very green too thanks to all the rain we’ve been getting. I’m looking forward to see how all the Austin gardens will be doing in the coming months.
Pam’s will look nice because she has a sunny yard and plants all those shrubby natives that look so nice. I have dry shade and it will probably end up looking like this again. — mss
May 15th, 2007
Your garden still has some action this May, but I can see why you call March and April the most floriforous months. With any luck, my shade tolerant heirloom daylily can be shared next fall, and it might work in your garden.
The YouTube terrifies me, M, yet I compulsively had to watch it yet again! There’s some sort of turning point in the shade-to-tree-root ratio that we need to understand, and I can’t figure it out yet. I _think_ having shade from my pecans helps keep some things from croaking in the summer sun, but they have to be taking up water. The cedar elms should have benefits, too… but just how thirsty are they?
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I should have made a new video in April to show how the garden springs back when we have plenty of rain and mild temperatures. A video of hope. — mss
May 15th, 2007
I just read your comment on the May Dreams site and, like you mentioned there, every time I go outside (or read someone else’s post) I remember something from my garden I should add to today’s report. Just now I saw a picture of a southern magnolia flower and realized that our magnolia has a few flowers that I didn’t think to include. Oh well. Maybe I’ll do an addendum tomorrow.
May 15th, 2007
Thanks for participating in Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. I can onlyaspire to keep the kind of detailed records that you have. This is the time of year when I forget to note when flowers start to bloom, because something new seems to bloom every day and it is a busy time.
You still have quite a bit blooming for this being a mostly ‘green month’ in your garden. I hope you have a mild summer to match your mild spring. I hope we get some rain soon!
May 16th, 2007
Annie is right: that video is terrifying, M. And you are right that all those shrubby natives I plant in the front yard do well in the summer. But I should also point out that I have shade in part of the front yard now, under the vitex tree, and even more shade in the back yard under the cedar elm. The reason my garden doesn’t burn up each summer is that I irrigate deeply every two weeks in the summer, religiously, unless we’ve gotten rain (which we never do).
But while we’re dreaming May dreams, let’s dream of a mild, wet summer, shall we? 🙂
My point was that because I have dense shade (my vitex isn’t creating the shade, it’s in the shade) that I can’t plant all those nice shrubby perennials that flower so nicely for you all summer. Well, I can plant them and have planted them but…no sunlight, no flowers. This is my list of usually flowerless plants: crape myrtle, esperanza, wisteria, vitex, salvia, lantana, duranta, false indigo, pavonia…and a bunch of others that I’ve planted over the years which died. — mss
May 16th, 2007
It’s interesting that both you and Pam said that your gardens are mostly green now.
Both lists of flowers look long to me!
Your drought presentation is scary, and thought-provoking. So much depends on the weather.