Bloom Day - October

They say that the real gardening season in San Antonio is the fall. My bloom day flowers are proof of that.


In honor of the cooler weather, here's Autumn Joy sedum. This is the first bloom cycle since I bought this plant.  I was expecting pale pink flowers, but I'm excited to see the red. I wonder if the flowers will turn pink when they open fully. Either way, I'm looking forward to running my hands across their fuzzy broccoli-looking tops.

 
In the same bed as the sedum, the asters are going strong while the moonbeam coreopsis are waning.


This coneflower is a late bloomer. I have three of these plants. Two bloomed on schedule in the summer, but this one is on its own schedule. It has two bright blooms while the other plants have brown, crispy stalks.


The last blooming plant in my new bed is black and blue salvia. Since it started blooming in June, it hasn't stopped. Sometimes it takes a short rest only to come back a week or so later.


Two of my edibles are in bloom. These peas already have full sized pods as well as little flowers that remind me of bonnets.


The blooms on the garlic chives have gotten so heavy, they've flopped to the ground.


In the front yard, the pigeon berry flowers have turned to fruit. If you're familiar with how nandina goes from flowers to berries, this plant does something similar.


Before the pigeon berries make their fruit, the flowers look like white cousins of the liripoe flowers - tiny blooms held close on thin stalks.


On my computer, the yellow centers of these purple shamrock flowers stand out. I hope that comes across on your screen too.


We do have fall leaf color in San Antonio, but don't look up; look at the groundcover. By the way, I saw at least 50 of these dwarf plumbagos in one-gallon pots at Wal-mart for $3 (half off). I resisted buying any, but maybe I'll go back for just three.


This prostrate rosemary makes me think of Christmas wreaths. I like the gray-blue-purple color of the flower. I need to paint a room. Maybe I'll match the paint to this flower.


Speaking of Christmas, the turk's cap has a holiday flavor too, like ornaments on a Texas Christmas tree.


I'm calling this a Lazarus mum. It was a table decoration at my 2009 National Night Out party. I put it in the compost, and it sprouted up in this bed. I guess it came up from seed.

The esperanza is another late bloomer. Everyone else's flowered all summer. These are its first blooms.


Finally, salvia greggii, a sure sign it's fall.

Happy bloom day. Head over to May Dreams to see what's blooming in other gardens.

Weekend Happenings

A caller to KTSA's Garden Show was having the same problem with her Giant Liriope that has plagued mine for about six months. One strap at a time, it's turning yellow and the plant is thinning. I am about 10 straps away from losing an entire plant.

Bob says liriope has no diseases or pests, but it can be planted too deeply and mulched too heavily. Armed with this piece of information, I pulled back the mulch and dirt on each plant until I exposed the root flare. Now, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I couldn't resist this Plantain Lily that was reduced to only $1 at Lowe's. This spring, I made a shade pot arrangement with Creeping Jenny, ferns and a Plantain Lily. The lily looks ragged under the more intense summer sun so I moved the pot, and I'm hopeful the new addition can withstand the weather.

For the backyard border garden that I'm working on, I needed Moonbeam Coreopsis. From what I've read, Moonbeam is a shorter coreopsis with lighter yellow flowers – perfect. However, none of my local nurseries stocked Moonbeam so I ordered some online and was surprised when they arrived as knots of roots in plastic bags.

I don't usually mark plants with their ID tags, but I was worried that I wouldn't remember where I planted them. Today, I was relieved to see a few shoots poking through the dirt.

 

In the veggie garden, squash vine borers devastated our zucchini and yellow squash. You can see the areas where the larvae burrowed into the stems. There's not much I can do to fight the borers, plus it's the end of the season so pulled up the plants and buried them as deep as I could in a compost salad.

Parting Shot: Travis spotted this tiny praying mantis in our cucumber jungle.