Friday, June 28, 2013

Early summer blooms Part 1: Warm colors for hot weather

It's early summer and we're expected to have record heat today and tomorrow, possibly 105F/40.5C.     Before it gets too hot out there and some of the plants go dormant for the summer, I've collected photos of blooms throughout the garden to share.  Today I'm featuring the warm colors of yellow, orange, and pink.

Narrowleaf zinnia, which is a perennial in our zone, continues to bloom throughout the summer.



Annual orange zinnias, reseeded from last summer, with Queen butterflies on the Gregg's mistflower.


Mexican Bird of Paradise adds hot color to the circle garden.



Native Damianita, which simply laughs at the heat, against the silvery foliage of lavender.


A small sunflower planted from seed seems happy with the heat.  I'm not sure of the name of this one.


 Achillea 'Moonshine' or yarrow

  
New Gold Lantana blooms in the front yard "heat island" between the sidewalk and driveway.  Pam Penick posted about my gold and silver combinations on her Austin blog Digging recently.  It was fun to see her take on my garden.  I use a lot of evergreen and ever-silver plants for year round structure and most of the blooms are gold.


Now for the pinks

Gomphrena 'Fireworks' is ready for the Fourth of July holiday.  I have several gomphrenas which bloom profusely in the heat.


Gorgeous pink canna grown from seed by a gardening friend.  I posted the story of this canna here.


Native salvia greggii


We don't have Crape Myrtles in our yard, but many of our neighbors do.  This week there is a profusion of blooms all around us.  These are across the street and I can see them from my front window. 


I had a special visit this week from Heather of the San Antonio blog Xericstyle.  Heather enjoys learning about gardening in San Antonio and we covered a lot of detail during her visit.  Here I'm showing off the eryngium I received from Michael when I visited Plano Prairie Garden a few weeks ago.

 
You can see Heather's delightful post on her visit to my garden here.

Part two will showcase other summer colors in my garden.

14 comments:

  1. Looks lovely, though I can feel the heat radiating from here...oh wait, that's the heat I'm feeling here in Houston! My crape myrtle is also in a second round of blooms right now.

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    1. I see it's been hot there too. Hot everywhere.

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  2. Your summer flowers are beautiful and lush. I especially like the Mexican Bird of Paradise tree, a totally different plant from the Bird of Paradise flowers that I grew in California. I looked them up and the hardiest only goes to 5*F which is not quite hardy enough for my garden. Sigh. I'm trying to grow a golden flowered yarrow, I found a little one still alive today, it doesn't seem to be growing as fast as the red 'Cassia' which is close to blooming. I still have a lot of seedlings to transplant and it is heating up here too- 95*F, though I have seen it go to 100*F, so I hope they will do OK. I guess I will wait until after the heat wave. Hardy geraniums are probably the dominant flowers blooming here now, I don't see any in your post... how do they do for you?

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    1. Geraniums are quite difficult to grow in San Antonio since they are only marginally heat tolerant. They might work well in the cooler months, but I rarely see them in nurseries.

      Best to wait until it cools off to transplant those seedlings. We plant a lot of things anyway and provide shade for them. We'd never get anything planted if we waited for cooler days.

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  3. Lucky you, to have Zinnias growing as perennials! I usually grow 'State Fair Mix' Zinnias as annuals, but I'm giving them a rest for a year, for "crop" rotation. But I miss them! Love the Crepe Myrtles, too--I'm just a little too far north for them. How nice that you're swapping garden tours with fellow Texas gardeners!

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    1. We do have a lot of fun with our garden visits.

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  4. You still have a lot of colorful flowers and it looks like the butterflies are happy to visit your garden. I saw my first queen butterflies of the year this week and, of course, they headed for the Gregg's mistflower. I hope you get some blooms and seeds from your eryngo this year.

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    1. The eryngo looks like it is forming blooms as the leaves are tightening up at the top so that should give it plenty of time to bloom and seed out.

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  5. Gorgeous as always! Oh, and your flowers are really stunning, too!

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  6. Looks great, despite the heat! I planted some narrow leaf Zinnia from some seed I found in Austin back in late April. I first learned of it on your blog last year. It`s beginning to bloom now. I`ve also got Eryngium going, thanks to Micahel and Pam for making me aware of it. I found one growing in Bosque county and gathered the seed last November.

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    1. How nice that you found eryngium in the wild to get seed from. That's always special when I can do that. It's a great looking seed head, I'm looking forward to having the blooms in my garden.

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  7. And we're complaining about possibly reaching the 90's. The silvery background is a lovely (and cooling) foil for all your brights.

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    1. It's all in your perspective, we are usually out getting work done when it's only in the 90s in summertime.

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  8. Absolutely gorgeous especially those zinnias.

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