Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to tell her what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.

June 15, 2010

Austin is in the glory of first summer now and its colors are like the chorus of that Pete Seeger ditty, Henry My Son, green and yeller. May, typically one of Austin’s wettest months, was unusually dry in 2010. However, June has made up for it with big storms bringing 2 inches of rain (June 2) and 4 inches of rain (June 9) to Zanthan Gardens. As a result, lot of fading spring flowers, like bluebonnets, larkspur, false dayflowers, nigella, and Confederate jasmine put out a few more flowers. And several of the roses are producing a second flush: ‘Blush Noisette’, ‘New Dawn’, and ‘Ducher’. ‘Red Cascade’ continues to have a few flowers from its first flush.

Fading bluebonnet. Two new flowers opened today but all the flowers are very pale in the heat.

New for June

My old faithfuls for first summer are in full flower: Rudbeckia hirta, Hibiscus syriacus, Antigonon leptopus, various Ruellia, and Polanisia dodecandra.

All over town Austin’s ubiquitous summer flower, the crape myrtle, is laden with bloom. I don’t think I’ve ever seen with such huge flowers before–just like our spring wildflowers. I credit the incredible rain from September to April. The lesson I’m learning is that while these flowers may tolerate our heat and drought, they really love twice the water we normally give them.

Lagerstroemia indica ‘Catawba.’

2010 was also the best year ever for my vitex (now fading). I have so much shade in my garden that both the crape myrtle and the vitex are pretty subdued compared to what you’ll see elsewhere in Austin

I’m still waiting for the oleander, duranto, and plumbago to flower. They are struggling back from their roots after Austin’s unusual big freeze in January 2010. I’m happily finding all sorts of plants I thought had died in the freeze springing back–the biggest surprise was new growth on the bottlebrush bush. And although I wasn’t surprised to discover a lot of self sown datura, I was to see new growth springing from the stump of one of last year’s plants.

I’ve had such good luck with the scraggly annual black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) that I thought I’d give the more impressive Rudbeckia maxima a try.

Rudbeckia maxima.

Between GBBDs

Several flower bloomed and faded in my garden between GBBDs and so didn’t show up in the inventory for either May or June: Gladiolus ‘Flevo Bambino’, globe artichoke, Opuntia ficus-indica, and Callirhoe involucrata.

Complete List for June

This is the list of all plants flowering today, June 15th 2010, at Zanthan Gardens.

• Abelia grandiflora (2010)
• Antigonon leptopus (2010)
• Antirrhinum majus (2010)
• Aristolochia fimbriata (2010)
• Asparagus densiflorus (2010)
• Chilopsis linearis (2010)
• Commelina communis (2010)
• Commelinantia anomala (2010)
• Consolida ambigua (2010)
• Engelmannia peristenia/pinnatifida (2010)
• Eschscholzia californica ‘Mikado’ (2010)
• garlic (2010)
• Helianthus annuus (2010)
• Hesperaloe parviflora (2010)
• Hibiscus syriacus (full bloom) (2010)
• Lantana ‘New Gold’ (2010)
• Lavandula heterophyla ‘Goodwin Creek Grey’ (2010)
• Lupinus texensis (a couple of fading flowers) (2010)
• Malvaviscus arboreus (2010)
• Mondo grass (2010)
• Nierembergia gracilis ‘Starry Eyes’ (2010)
• Nigella damascena (fading singles and doubles) (2010)
• Oenothera speciosa (2010)
• Origanum vulgare (2010)
• Oxalis triangularis (2010)
• Parkinsonia aculeata (2010)
• Pavonia hastata (2010)
• Polanisia dodecandra (2010)
• rose ‘Blush Noisette’ (2010)
• rose ‘Ducher’ (2010)
• rose ‘New Dawn’ (2010)
• rose ‘Red Cascade’ (2010)
• rosemary (2010)
• Rudbeckia hirta (2010)
• Rudbeckia maxima (2010)
• Ruellia (2010)
• Sedum album (2010)
• Setcresea (both purple and green) (2010)
• Thymophylla tenuiloba ‘Golden Fleece’ (2010)
• tomato (2010)
• Trachelospermum jasminoides (almost finished) (2010)
• Verbena canadensis (lavender wilding) (2010)
• Vitex agnus-castus (2010)
• waterlily ‘Helvola’ (2010)
• Zexmenia hispida (2010)
• unidentified white-flower (2010)

Unidentified white flower.

The week before we went on vacation, Zanthan Gardens got 7 inches of rain in less than three days. The week we were gone, we got another 3.5 inches and temperatures dropped enough that my Austin garden friends on Twitter were talking about drinking hot tea and putting on sweaters.

In our absence the garden was transformed. It was green. (Mostly weeds.) Bluebonnets, cilantro, and Love-in-the-mist had sprouted. The rosemary was blooming. Half the lavender had rotted away. A large aloe vera had collapsed and a wooden retaining wall had fallen over.

The spineless prickly pear cactus which withered in the drought has become so bloated with rain that it had collapsed under its own weight. I hated it before and I really hate it now. So most of it will be removed to the city’s composting collection.

The crape myrtles would have bloomed better all summer if I had watered them. I saw them blooming all over Austin. However, they are a rather low priority plant in my garden when it comes to precious summer water so they had to wait for the rains. I think I cherish them even more now for missing them over summer.

Some oxblood lilies were still flowering on my return. However, I was surprised by this red giant blooming: the St. Joseph’s Lily. Maybe it wanted to join in the red revelry. It’s supposed to bloom in the spring, on the saint’s feast day, March 19th.

I also was surprised to see the Sweet Alyssum blooming. It’s never survived the summer before and 2009 was the worst of summers. About half the plants have survived even though sometime in August I stopped watering them. Such tenacity!

The curly parsley was another surprise. Last fall was the first time I grew it and found it as easy to grow as cilantro but when the cilantro faded in the heat the parsley soldiered on. I lost most of it but a few hardy stems which had died almost completely to the ground came back. I’ve decided that the intense bright green will make a perfect low hedging for my winter garden. I’m going to plant a lot more this year.

Some things are just as expected. The garlic chives, Allium tuberosum, are dependable fall flowers and a nice complement to the oxblood lilies. Over the years, they do tend to take over like all their allium kin. I’ve been pretty brutal the last few years yanking them out where I didn’t want them and not replanting them. Still, I’m happy to see them when they do bloom. It makes fall feel complete.