Garden Bloggers Bloom Day August 2017

Welcome to Garden Bloggers Boom Day.  It's August in North Texas and like always, it's hot and pretty dry this time of year.  It isn't the best looking time of year for our garden.  Most gardeners in these parts are keeping things alive and the weeds at bay waiting for fall and the cooler weather.  We are no different (only we are not battling very hard against the weeds and they are starting to win a few places).

Right now our Rain Lilies (Zephyranthes) are blooming like crazy.  A bonus of a wet summer, well besides the bonus of water.  All of our Rain Lilies are in the Agave Garden in one of our "Hell Strips".  This is a particularly narrow one that only took two swipes of a mower to mow when we first moved it.  Now it's planted with Agaves, Sedums, and Rain Lilies.  All of the rain comes out of the backyard, down the driveway and into this bed.  We've capped off the irrigation, so it isn't regularly watered.

 

We have a few different kinds planted and since they self sow, they should increase in numbers each year.  This is their second summer being planted in this garden.

Ignore the purslane.  I know it's a weed, but it's also great tortoise food.  So it's slowly getting removed and fed to Petunia our male marginated tortoise.  Mediterranean tortoises eat a lot of weeds and grasses.  His favorites include dandelions and hibiscus flowers.  Purslane is not a favorite, but it is healthy, so it gets served regularly.

These orange ones are a favorite of mine.  I love the saturated color and the stripiness on the petals.  It's one of my favorite patterns flowers can have in my opinion.  I love unusual patterning and spotting.

An old topiary Hibiscus recently bloomed for the first time.  We overwintered it and then didn't have a good place for it, so it's actually in Petunia's enclosure.  He didn't get to eat this bloom, instead he got purslane for his evening snack (kidding, he got a pink hibiscus bloom).

We still have some plants around the pool blooming, though this is one of the locations where the mites did their dirty work. The hardy Hibiscus are still going strong.  I'm enjoying them so much during the heat of August, that I'm thinking of adding a few tall varieties to the barrier garden as a sort of backdrop when we re-do it this fall.

The Plumbago is enjoying it's new found freedom away from it's sweet potato vine oppressor and is blooming like crazy. 

We are also still getting to enjoy a bunch of re-blooming daylilies. Such a treat!  Since basically our entire daylily garden was transplanted from our old house to this garden, last summer's bloom season wasn't very spectacular.  It makes this year seem even better.

'Webster's Pink Wonder'

'Sweet Seneca Butterflies'

'Barbara Mitchel'

'Painted Trillium'

'Cobbs Hill Jester'

Finally we stop at the Butterfly/Pollinator garden.  It is still blooming, though it is starting to show some stress from the heat.  Both milkweeds are looking good.

  

 As are the random Rudbeckia we got on our Oklahoma Daylily trip and the lantanas that were added for summer color.  The Rudbeckia had been mislabeled so the nursery didn't know what it was exactly, only that it wasn't what they ordered.  We liked so we added it to one of our daylily purchases and brought it home.

Thanks for taking the time to see what we having going on in the garden!  If you are interested in seeing more gardens visit May Dreams Garden to see other's Garden Blogger's Bloom Day posts.