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.
