Garden Blogger's Bloom Day February 2017

What blooms in South Texas in February?  Quite a few plants, especially this year with above average temperatures most days.  And this year one of my favorite plants that usually doesn't bloom until March is already in full bloom.  That's why I'm joining in with Garden Blogger's Bloom Day this month.

Texas Mountain Laurel (Sephora secundiflora) surprised with early blooms despite a couple of deep freezes and a long run of cloudy days.

Love those grape-scented blooms.

Still emerging

Cooler weather should help the blooms last for a while.  Some years the heat does them in.

Covered with bees ....

.....even though the camera could only get one at a time!

More blooms on this pretty February day

Blackfoot Daisy is a reliable survivor of hard freezes.  It barely slows down and begins blooming quickly again.  Even better is seeing this native plant shrug off our summer heat while blooming away through July and August.

 Ditto Four-Nerve Daisy

Golden buds on a red barrel cactus promise the first blooms on this plant since I planted it about three years ago.

Succulents kept under wraps during the coldest nights bloom early like this Echeveria.

Kalanchoe daigremontiana blooms on a stem so large it dwarfs the plant

Rosemary thrives in my garden and commonly blooms through the winter

Suprisingly similar to Rosemary are these Silver Germander blooms

Bougainvillea were stuck in the garage during the freeze.

Mexican Honeysuckle is another plant that seems to have powered through the freeze on the northeast corner of the garden.  Sparsely blooming, but still it counts.

Purple Oxalis hiding under stems of perennials

Meyer Lemon blooms forming fruit already.  I made a Lemon Cheesecake in December with last year's fruit.

The first wildflowers are Prairie Verbena (Glandularia bipinnatifida)

and Greenthread

Buds forming on the Texas Bluebonnets mean blooms will be here soon.  You might have to look way down in there to see it.

Turns out there are quite a few blooms this February.  Garden Blogger's Bloom Day is hosted on the 15th of each month by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

It's been a good summer in the garden

I'm not sure I could have imagined a gardening year like this when I began planning our garden back in 2009!  After a mild winter and nice spring weather, we've had cooler than average temperatures with so much rain this summer that I've rarely needed to water anything.

Salvia greggii are blooming bright out by the street.  As predicted the Cenizo sage have bloomed again due to a foot of rain last week.  With so little downtime the blooms are not quite as intense as in my previous post.  With so much rain again this week I wonder when they will stop blooming.

My drought tolerant plants are responding well to so much rain.  Bright pink Salvia greggii in the mailbox strip were planted about 20 years ago when I was too busy to garden and had no clue what to plant in San Antonio.  An article in the paper recommended Salvia greggii for our climate so in they went over a long weekend.  A year later we were transferred to Boston and rented this house out for eleven years.  Eleven years of garden neglect and they never missed a beat!  We easily divided enough for the driveway landscape (above) four years ago.

The front walk view is shaping up well.  I find myself trying to describe to first-time visitors how we essentially started with a blank slate.  It seems hard to imagine now.  Maybe a slide show some day would work better.

Sometimes it's even harder to see in photos, for example, the agave bed in the lower right looks so much better in person.

Current favorites are beautyberry plants in three colors.  Bright magenta on Callicarpa americana.

White beautyberry, there are several botanical names so I'm not sure which this is.

And the deeper purple Mexican Beautyberry.

Not the best photo but when I returned to take another, it seems the birds had nearly finished stripping  the berries.

This photos shows darker berries.

On to the side gate where no-mow buffalo grass has stayed green all summer.

Plants in the circle garden are overgrowing their beds due to all the rain.

 Last year the tank garden was mostly grasses, this year Blackfoot daisy spills out from under blue Salvia farinacea accented by Gomphrena 'Fireworks'.  Seedlings are popping up everywhere!

Hyacinth bean vine climbs the cedar arbor.  I keep testing vines that can take a direct shot of sun hitting the arbor in late summer.  This year we had so many cloudy days in August that it wasn't the best test.  We'll see what happens next year.

Pomegranates look ready but it will be a few more months before we pick them.  Tart pomegranate seeds are not that great.

Hardy and tasty Lemonquats are turning yellow.  This unique citrus tree was developed in Texas especially for our hot-cold-rain-drought climate.

Native poinsettia bracts are turning neon orange.  I started with just a few my friend Cheryl dug up on her family ranch near Pipe Creek and just one year later they are everywhere.

Love them!  Brighter than surveyor's paint.

No longer a neglected back fence corner, the hottest spot in the garden is looking good now.

Three different colors of Esperanza will grow to make a colorful hedge.

Bells of Fire

Traditional yellow bells

And 'Mahogany' mix of yellow with orange.

Hibiscus blooms make the humidity seem almost worth it.  Japanese lantern hibiscus.

Moy Grande Hibiscus

A look over the side fence down the stone path and my pot ghetto under the arching trees.

While we've been cloudier than usual there's always sunshine in my garden.

Fall is also normally great weather here as we take a long, slow slide into a usually short and mild winter season.  This has been a great gardening year so far, and there are four months remaining.  I wonder how the year will end?

The garden celebrates in Red, White and Blue

It's the Fourth of July and time to display the colors and celebrate the Red, White, and Blue from my garden this week.

Kicking off the festivities with a first-time bloomer and current favorite plant Heartleaf Rosemallow (Hibiscus martianus).  I purchased this native hibiscus from Medina Garden Nursery about 18 months ago and the deer loved to eat the buds (but not the plant) so it never bloomed until we fenced the deer out.

Austin Gardens on Tour 2014: Stratford Drive Garden

In early May friends from San Antonio and I met up with a group of Austin garden bloggers for the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Gardens on Tour event in Austin.  We had so much fun touring gardens together and I posted on Tait Moring's wonderful garden the following week.  We had great weather all through May and June so I focused on garden projects, but with the summer heat upon us it's about time I get caught up with blogging and posting more garden adventures.

The Stratford Drive garden was our second stop on the tour.  Like a number of gardens on the tour, this garden was very natural in its planting style.  From the hillside in front of the house we get a glimpse of the view across the canyon behind the house and an idea of how steep this garden is.

Garden Tour San Antonio Style: Xeric Garden

This week I'm posting gardens from The San Antonio Herb Society Garden Tour.   The last garden Ragna and I toured was the "Xeric Garden" in the far north suburbs.

The view from the street with Blackfoot Daisy, bush germander, and native ornamental grasses (possibly Lindheimer's Muhly).  The euphorbia surprised since the sun kills mine.  We didn't get a plant list at this stop so some guessing is involved.

Zoysia lawn, in excellent shape, surrounded by beds of drought tolerant plants.

Garden Tour San Antonio Style: Urban Chic in Southtown

The Herb Society of San Antonio held a garden tour this past Saturday and friend Ragna and I took the opportunity to check out some special gardens in our city.

"Urban Chic" is the third garden on our tour.  Located in the Southtown neighborhood of older homes near downtown currently undergoing revitalization, this house was built on an empty lot and completed in March 2010.