Bloom Day September 2008

I can't believe it's mid-September. For one thing, here in Virginia it's 90 degrees in the shade--and that would be the full deep cold shade produced by the northeast corner of the house--I'm just not going to think about what the temperature might be in the sun. Suffice it to say that I finished gardening by 7:30 this morning. I'm also just not going to think about the fact that, despite the heat, summer is effectively over. Still, as I went out to document my September garden for Bloom Day (check out May Dreams Garden if you haven't heard about Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day), I was struck by the fact that many plants seem about a month behind, I think because of the heat and drought this summer. My Don Juan climbing roses, for example, are in glorious rebloom--I usually see this early in August.








This rebloom is especially welcome because the Japanese beetles are long gone--the roses haven't been this pretty since May.









The Rosa moyesii "Geranium" is also still in its second bloom (the other shrub roses have faded).







But it's had some unwelcome guests--the heat is, I think, giving some of our other bad bugs a slightly longer life:









The same bug seems to be after this dahlia--the flower was a sweet surprise, as it's either a volunteer or something I forgot that I planted--it's actually come up under the Rose moyesii, so I'll have to move it once it finishes blooming.









Ok, I have to think about my principle of organization here--do I stay with bugs or say more about rebloom? This next photograph combines the two--but I'll start with the bugs.

The detail I get with my new camera has a potential downside--so I snapped this picture of a little allium coming up alongside an azalea in bud, and then I decided to crop so I could better see the visiting bug:




Do you think this might be an adult onion maggot? (Here's the whole blogging-as-a-gateway-drug thing again--I need more comprehensive books with color plates . . . ) Or could it be a male deer fly? The onion maggot is trouble (and every online site I visted showed the same lame b&w drawing of the adult, not much help); the male deer fly would be just stopping by for some nectar. And of course, when I cropped the photograph, I saw all the little bugs--aphids, right? I think I need another dose of insecticidal soap.

Here, I hope, is a better bug, on the same allium plant (I like the shadow in this photograph).






The cropped version shows this bug in closeup. I hope this is a soldier beetle, and I hope it likes aphids--seems to be what it's after.





More bugs (one more, anyway) later.

On to happier subjects: the azaleas are starting their fall bloom. The one below gets a little more sun than the one in bud by the allium, and is in its full autumn splendor:






Here's another view of it behind the japanese painted fern, elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta), and our whimsical little weather-horse:

(Forgive the digression: azaleas are deer candy, which reminds me that I was speaking to a gardener who's recently moved to our area, and he was asking me how I coped with the deer. When I mentioned the deer cages, he looked at me like I was insane. At first I thought it was an aesthetic thing--granted, the cages are not the loveliest things in the world--until I realized he thought it was the deer that I put in the cages. Clearly I need to work on clarity.)

(Forgive a second digression, something of an editor's note (actually me unable to edit): for some reason, at this point in the posting, the Enter key apparently stopped functioning--although there are spaces between the paragraphs when I edit the post, the published version has everything jammed together. Maybe blogger is trying to imitate my garden . . . But onward]

The Abelia, too, is producing some new blooms (I think this is A. "Edward Goucher"--another lost tag) --Les, the Tidewater Gardener, posted on the (grand?) parents of this plant in August.

So, from rebloom to steady bloom. The stalwarts are still, well, stalwart. I'm amazed that the Salvia guaranitica (black & blue) and the Salvia uliginosa are still going strong. Granted, I first encountered them at the Elizabethan Gardens in mid-October, but mine started blooming in May this year, so I thought they might finish earlier. They're so tall that they're starting to flop in some spots--this one's stooping to visit a Coleus.

But this one stands as tall as the Agastache and elephant ear neighboring it (and these little mum buds will pretty surely be the stars of October's Bloom Day):

The butterfly bushes go on and on. Both the light purple volunteer bush . . .

. . . and the one in the white garden continue to put forth new blooms.

Echinacea purpurea "White Swan" keeps the white garden looking white,

with the help of one last Shasta Daisy.

And the annuals keep the color going at the front of the borders. Here's annual vinca (from a bargain basement hanging basket, no tag, don't know the Latin name) in the white garden:

And in the sunny border, one of my favorites, Angelonia

pops up amidst Mexican heather (Cuphea hyssofolia--actually a tender perennial) and Heliotrope.

A Mandevilla vine provides color alongside the house.

Some blooms have given way to fruits--or almost, anyway--while this isn't the greatest shot (the breeze this morning was wreaking havoc with my depth of field), I was delighted to find this little blossom among the Pyracantha berries:

The Callicarpa berries are ripening--a little later than Tina's at In the Garden, who posted last month about this wonderful native.

And the seedheads are starting to form on my Harlequin Glorybower (Clerodendrum trichotonum)--another one of my favorites--the flowers smell like vanilla; the crushed leaves smell like peanut butter.

Some plants are just starting to bloom. This Ceratostigma plumbaginoides is a new plant in a new bed--more on that project soon.

I picked up this Plectranthus plepalia (Swedish ivy) at the same time I bought the Cerostigmata (this one an impulse buy)--it's getting its first little flower. This is a very tender perennial--I'm going to keep it in a pot and try to overwinter it indoors.

Another new plant with an autumn bloom: Chelone "Hot Lips," or Turtlehead--another plant I learned about from Tina.



And speaking of amphibians (or is a turtle a reptile? an embarrassingly corny segue, in any case)--my toad lily (Tricyrtis, probably hirta, "Lightning Strike") is starting to bloom:

But my favorite new bloom is my ginger lily, Hedychium (most likely coronarium or flavescens). This is another acquisition from the Elizabethan Gardens. It's a tropical plant, originally from Nepal, but it's said to be the national flower of Cuba (where it's called "Butterfly Flower") and it's become an invasive weed in Brazil. It's been hardy in my Zone 7b garden--in fact, it's spread quite a bit, which is fine with me because it's incredibly fragrant. And it often blooms into November if conditions stay mild.

It's a tall plant--this next photograph isn't particularly good, but it gives a sense of its height. You can see the back door in the background, and the Don Juan blossom is probably close to 6'.

Something else I've been waiting for--the return of the Black and Yellow Garden Spider. Gail at Clay and Limestone posted about these beauties earlier in the summer, but they show up later here than they do in Tennesee. Today, I saw the first evidence of their return--the distinctive zigzag in the web.

And then, on the deck, the spinner herself:

I plan to close every Bloom Day with the only plant I have that blooms year round--my Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia lomi). Since it will be a regular on my blog, I figured I better switch out its surroundings from time to time. We've actually started its move indoors (prematurely--who knew it would hit 100 on September 14th?)--but since it will need to come in as soon as the temperature drops below 60, we've moved it close to the door to deck, where I caught its reflection.

So Ranunculus and I say, "Happy Bloom Day!"