Is It Fall Yet?

After a little rain and some (slightly) cooler temperatures, I forayed out into the garden this morning to see what was still holding on after our hottest ever August.

In this picture, you will notice the Lindheimer senna looking prety perky with its sunny yellow flowers and velvetty soft grey- green leaves. What a winner- it takes the heat and the dry without losing a leaf. Five years ago one of these seedlings piggy- backed into my garden in the pot of a Barbados Cherry I bought at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I didn"t know what it was but I gave it a shot and it shot up and bloomed it's heart out for a few weeks beginning in September. It produces lots of long seed pods that will provide you with plants for years to come. I love the leaves on this plant and look forward to the splash of color it brings in the fall when lots of plants are pretty done in.

Texas Tough

Though many of the plants I planted last spring have not made through to another year, there are some notable exceptions. In the photo above, you see one of these troopers-heartleaf skullcap which has grown to create a lovely green carpet  and creates a nice woodland feel to this shady area. It has spead quite a bit from the three 4" pots I originally planted. But it is not a bully and is also quite easy to transplant. I love it's fuzzy heart- shaped leaves and it will send up little blue bloom spikes soon. It goes dormant in the summer but comes back with cool weather.
At the rear you can see the American Beautyberry beginnng to leaf out. It is also one year old this spring.

This beauty is "Old Blush". Totally unfazed by the hot, dry summer or the winter, she has been blooming for a couple of weeks and is now covered with tiny buds. This was my first rose and she has prompted me to move on to several others. I chose her because the descrption at the nursery said it was the easiest rose to grow and they were right. She is no trouble at all.

I love the chartreuse color of the new growth on the
 "Tangerine Beauty" crossvine.
 It is covered with lots of buds and I can't wait to see it burst aflame with it's trumpet- like flowers.