Bloom Day - July 2017

It's bloom day! You can see lots of gorgeous blooms at Carol's blog - as always she is a most gracious host!

Most people have lots of great pictures of summer flowers in their garden, and are waxing poetically about summer evenings... Here, it's been over 100 deg F for 8 out of the last 12 days. And 12 out of the 15 days before that. Let's say there's a lot of room for improvement in how my garden looks in the summer. Especially since i'm not spending a lot of time out there right now.

Enough whining! Some flowers are toughing out the heat with me here:

some buddleja is still in bloom, here and there in the tree.

lantana (this is l. camara, which is the only one that's ever come back) just laughs at the heat.

the hoya kerrii, hiding in the shade, is making blooms and buds since the dove nest got moved.

does this still count as a bloom? Dasylirion quadrangulatum bloom

dicliptera suberecta is doing a lot better at making blooms this year. 

the grasses are kind of blooming - purple fountain grass here.

my vitex agnus-castus still has some washed out blooms

2nd flush of the daisies (i should dead head this one!)

a few erythrina x bidwillii blooms - more will come later!

you know it's hot when the russian sage looks washed out.

Coreopsis 'route 66' doesn't mind the heat.

here and there, a few sage blooms are still there - this is Salvia "Silke's Dream" which is new. 

most blooms wish they had protection like this late opuntia one...

Hey, one of the cacti is blooming! (wait...)

That's it for here! I'd say we're waiting for cooler temperatures, but that won't happen for a while. Maybe i just need more tough flowers - i'll spend between now and fall planting season thinking about all the potential heat lovers i could add to tempt me out into the garden in the heat of summer!

Just some pictures

Earlier this week, I took a bunch of pictures of my garden as I was about to leave it for a few days again. I didn't want to post them all to Instagram, so I'm putting them here! This is my garden looks like on a random Tuesday in May:

Agave 'Crazy Horse' - love the stripes!

A. lophantha 'Quadricolor which usually hides under grass

Agave whichever 'Cream Spike'

The new kid on the block: A 'Snow Glow'

Still amazed these aloes grow and seem happy!

Purple and yellow!

The first of the daisies that reseeded everywhere

Hiding under the Palo Verde blooms

Green, silver and purple on the hillside

 Even though I'm a bit late, I'm linking to both Carol at May Dreams Garden for Bloom Day and Pam at Digging for Foliage Follow-up. There are way more gardens, blooms and foliage at both their blogs that I can look at while I'm away from mine!

April Bloom Day

Time for Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Garden! There are so many things blooming all over the world. I don't have pictures of all my blooms, but just a couple that caught my eye after a week-long work trip.

The poppies are blooming everywhere except the planting beds. I wonder if there's any chance of them being as well behaved as Gerhard's? There's a particularly large clump in the dry stream bed:

Poppies plus Cassia (or Senna) on the hill side

More poppies and ice plant on the rest of the hill side

 It seems like the ice plant is blooming less than last year. I'm not sure why there is a random pillow (?!?) in the middle of the hillside. This still part needs a lot of clean up. That's what Easter is for!

My new iris is blooming! It's in a container in the back of one of the large planting beds. It's doing surprisingly well. I really like the color. 

I think like this is like Carol's variety name: "there's a tag somewhere"

 This combo of yucca and daisies makes me look like I plan things or something:

I don't, but i need to get more of that color daisies...

 And last - these aren't flowers, but they are growing and so cute!

Baby hummingbirds! 

Happy Gardening Bloggers' Bloom Day! Carol has many more blogs to look at in her comments!

Bloom Day: May 2016

Every month, Carol at May Dreams Garden hosts Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. She has quite a few beautiful blooms, and links to gardens from around the world. I gave myself an assignment to go out this morning and find all the flowers in my garden. Here is a look at some of what is blooming in my garden this May:

Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips' with almost all white flowers

Clematis Jackmanii with mostly 4 petals this year

Rosa 'Blaze' is still blooming

Oenothera speciosa out in mass

Lantana camara Miss Huff, the only one that comes back every year

the yellow form of Hesperaloe parviflora

Parkinsonia x 'Desert Museum'  in the front garden

the blooms on Senna phyllodinea seem to never stop

a tiny Eremophila is pushing out flowers (hopefully it lives!) 

Centaurea gymnocarpa flowers match the opuntia next to it

Orange poppies!

Manfreda undulata Chocolate Chips is sending out alien flowers again

Poppies with yellow

Buddleia davidii 'Black Knight' smells amazing

Callistemon citrinus 'Little John' showing off

There is more, because it's spring and, as Carol says, May is when dreams come true. But i'm going to go explore other people's blooms at May Dream Gardens! Happy GBBD!

Bloom day and foliage follow up

Just a few shots from the garden in honor of bloom day (at Carol's) and Foliage follow up (at Pam's)....

Yucca blooms adding flowers to this foliage dominated vignette

Agave is finally happy in this spot!

This one was a tiny pup 3 years ago... It needs mulch!

This 'cream spike' is like a foliage flower...

Can't wait for the bottle brush to start adding flowers here... There are so many buds this year!

Agave 'kisso kan', in the ground (!), another foliage plant that looks like a flower...

And no post would be complete without a view of the hillside right now...

Every day, there are more ice plant blooms

Orange and pink!