Mystic spires salvia staging a comeback
Lantana promising flowers
A new plant I tucked in various (hot, dry) places is Homestead Verbena- and it is putting out beautiful purple flowers.
I also have a few late summer scraggler veggies popping up. I get a cucumber every once in a while (the one below needs to keep growing!), and I was excited to discover my tired old tomato plants putting out a couple of last tomatoes. I pruned the rest of the plant after this picture hoping that the new growth will make a few more over the next month or so.
I trimmed the autumn sage a few weeks ago and it is now putting out new flowers.
My volunteers in the back enjoyed the rain from last week, too:
Scarlet sage that has spread through my walkway
A small pigeonberry plant
I have many Drummond's ruellias. Their flowers are subtle but they do really well in my dry dry back area! Now if I can move them out of the walkway closer to the fence..
What are not looking good either in my garden or in the neighborhood are the Mexican plum trees . The one below is in front of Fullmore middle school and it has the same ratty yellowing leaves as mine does. I hope it is just seasonal change.
And it just feels too soon to have to rake leaves (which I did today)! My sycamore is starting to drop so I made a giant pile in the driveway.... now bagged in the front.. The pecans are also dropping in my yard and in the neighborhood. They are mostly green still but that just makes them heavier when they land on my head while I'm walking.
The green plant at the top left corner is a crepe myrtle. It had been a large (25 ft tall at least) tree on the neighbor's side but was chopped down during construction of a new house last year. It looks like it is growing back from the roots and also has flower buds on it's tips. What resilience (or stubborness!).
That homestead verbena is so pretty. Every time I see that planted elsewhere I want some but then I recall I already have lots of the less showy prairie verbena established and I feel almost disloyal. Weird...
ReplyDeleteI'm noticing a lot of trees seem more heat stressed than usual despite all the rain earlier this year. Maybe they over-reached, prompted by the rain, and now are cutting their losses? Bloom times and seeding and well, EVERYthing seems a bit off this year. Here's hoping September brings gentle rains and kinder temps and gives us all a chance to breathe and regroup!
Heat stress is a good idea- it was an odd weather year! Hopefully the trees will look better next year..
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it nice when the flowers feel like coming out again? And those ruellias--are they not the best August bloomers? I love mine. They do transplant well, too, which is a bonus. I used to teach at Fulmore--a long, long time ago.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that the ruellias are great- now that I'm paying attention I see them all over the neighborhood!
Delete