Blue Skies, Smiling At Me...

This is a plumbago, a tropical plant that comes back every year for me in zone 8, if I mulch it well. It has sky blue flowers that keep on coming from late May till frost in Louisiana. This would be a great container plant for those living in colder areas. It has a bushy/trailing growth habit that looks really nice in a cottage setting. I've seen them get huge in warmer or protected areas, but you can prune them back if they get out of hand. One of my favorites.

A Few Daylilies

I don't know the name of this particular daylily. We just call it the "wine-colored" daylily.

This is yet another picture of my Dominic daylily. I can now say that this is my favorite daylily of this year. I just delight in the almost-black blooms.

This is another picture of Joan Senior. This is the daylily that blooms most and longest for me. It also has a slight fragrance.

Am I Posting Too Many Roses?

Mrs. B. R. Cant is thriving in our heat and humidity. As the plant gets larger and more robust, the blooms are getting bigger too. What a lovely rose. If you live in the South, you need this one.

Julia Child is flushing into bloom again. This plant seems to be getting healthier with the onset of summer.

Double Delight is becoming the star of the show around here. You don't get to see the cream colored center as long because the sun and heat quickly turn the blooms the color you see in this picture. Still not a sign of blackspot on this plant, though it's not known for disease resistance.

Can you tell that I just got home from 2 weeks on the ocean and am going crazy taking plant pictures? Sorry to overload my readers!

Night Blooming Jasmine

My Night Blooming Jasmine is finally blooming. See the unpretentious, white buds (not the orange one) on the bottom left side of the bush? You don't grow this for the flowers, you grow it for the smell. I knew it was blooming when I got home from town last night because I smelled it as soon as I came around the corner of my house. The fragrance is very sweet, strong, and cloying. Some people love it and some hate it. The bush is somewhat lanky and open unless you do what I've done and keep pruning it back. I planted some Black-eyed Susan (thunbergia) vine in with mine and that's the little orange flower you see in this picture. This is a tender plant that dies to the ground after a freeze, but should come back in zones 8b and higher. No fragrance garden should be without this one.

Westerland!

After all my other roses have been putting on a show since March or April, look who came late to the party - Westerland! I've been eagerly waiting for this one and it is not a disappointment. It's a beautiful orange/apricot color and has delicious fragrance. It will grow into a stiff-limbed climber and hopefully meander all over my chain link fence.

Just Glad to Be Here

This is a purple gladiola blooming in my yard. I planted a bunch of gladiola bulbs (actually corms) in my yard probably 4 or 5 years ago. They must like it here because they come back every year with no care or help at all. Their only problem is occasionally getting too tall and flopping over. I hear you can plant them deeper and they won't do this as badly, or just stake them. There are dwarf varieties that supposedly don't flop. My advice is to pick some colors that you like, stick them 6" deep in the ground in early spring, and let them "gladden" your heart.

A Passion for Flowers

If you don't grow at least one passiflora vine ("Passion Flower") on a trellis, you're definitely missing out. The variety that I'm growing is called "Incense." It's known as a hardy, deep purple, florific variety that doesn't set fruit. If you want fruit, then you are better off planting the common maypop, which is also a passiflora. You will not find a plant with a more unique and exquisite flower than the passiflora. Want another reason to grow them? They are also the exclusive host for both the Gulf Fritillary butterfly and the Zebra Longwing butterfly.

There are many different varieties of passiflora, so be sure to get one that is hardy for your area. Common maypop and Incense are two of the hardiest varieties and can be grown comfortably as far north as zone 6. They will die down to the ground after a freeze, but come back in the Spring. Other varieties can be grown further south. They are quite easy to grow and can even become rampant. Sometimes the butterfly caterpillars will become numerous enough to nearly eat the vines up, so you may want to thin the "cat's" out a little.

Of Dogs and Plants

This is our dog "Jelly." She has the same bad habits that most other dogs have. Here is a trick for getting around one really bad dog habit - DIGGING! Jelly loves to dig in newly dug ground. She doesn't care if the ground happens to be the resting place of seeds or plants. They will just get dug up. I tried everything, including buying huge boxes of cayenne pepper and pouring it over the dirt around new plants. Finally, a lady in our church told me to just put some of Jelly's own feces on top of the fresh dirt and she would leave it alone. Wouldn't you know, it works! It is the ONLY thing that works. So now after I put in new plants, you shortly thereafter see me walking around with a "poop scooper." After over a year of doing this, I hardly even need to be faithful at it since Jelly has learned to naturally avoid newly planted areas.

Doubling My Delight

This is the second huge flush of the year on my Double Delight rose bush. Notice that the blooms don't have near as much of the characteristic cream coloration that Double Delight is so famous for. When the hot weather hits, this coloration does not last nearly as long. This bush has been especially healthy for me and is putting out tons of blooms even though I only bought the plant last summer. It's a great advertisement for getting roses that are grafted on Fortuniana rootstock.

For those who don't remember, the main selling points of Double Delight are: delectable fragrance, long stems that are great for cutting, blooms that last very long in the vase, and exquisite coloration. Typically, DD is prone to blackspot and needs to be sprayed often, but mine hasn't had this problem much - though I have sprayed it several times this year with fungicide just as a preventer.

A Daisy of a Vine

My Mexican Flame Vine is starting to really bloom lately. It's a butterfly-attracting vine that looks like a an orange daisy. It loves hot weather and can be quite vigorous if given the right conditions. It's somewhat hard to find, but worth searching for. It will come back in zone 8 if given enough protection. Otherwise, it can be grown as an annual. I think it would be a good hanging basket plant since it would cascade out nicely. I think it could also be a nice ground cover, though I've found that slugs like it. In order for it to climb well, you have to either tie it or twine it onto a trellis or fence. I've heard that it's pretty easy to grow from seed, so I will be saving some seed from mine this year.