Thursday, April 17, 2008

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day - April

One of these Bloom Days, I'll get my Bloom Day post up on time! This week has been insanely busy for me. If I'm not at work, I'm out in the front yard shoveling dirt and hauling landscape bricks. My goal is to have the new beds ready for planting by next week. I've had the trees delivered already and it's going to get hot soon, so I'm working as fast as I can. We'll see how that goes. I'm just thankful that the Inside Austin Gardens tour is tomorrow, so I have an excuse to take it easy. I'm just about ready to get myself a t-shirt that says "Welcome To The Gun Show" and rip off the sleeves redneck-style, because with all the heavy lifting I've been doing lately, my biceps can ripple with the best of them.

Anyway, this Bloom Day, welcome to The Shire! Sadly, since there are two mesquite trees overhanging the back yard, Hobbits don't go barefoot here.
















In a few short months, everything has grown in leaps and bounds. I'm hoping that soon I won't be seeing much mulch. Here's a shot featuring Maggie, Belinda's Dream, and the Double Knockout, with the Orchid Tree also in bloom.






















Today's incarnation of Double Delight:






















The other Double Knockout:






















Ice plant, a total workhorse bloomer for the last month at least:






















The best of my attempts at photographing larkspur. I love this stuff. It reminds me of the delphiniums I grew in Wisconsin.






















Madame Alfred Carriere, reminding me of the bloom form of Marie Pavie:






















Maggie on the fence:



















Marie Pavie putting on a show, with Double Knockout in the background:






















Pink Knockout looks almost like a bicolor as the flowers age:






















First bloom, Pioneer rose Thomas Affleck. Unfortunately, I can't catch a fragrance, but the bush is thornless, so there are compensations:























And a list of plants blooming on the 15th:

roses:
Thomas Affleck
Double Knockout
Pink Double Knockout
Pink Knockout
Rainbow Knockout
Blushing Knockout
Belinda's Dream
Maggie
Louis Philippe
Souvenir de la Malmaison (theoretically, since only that one bud has opened properly)
Duchesse de Brabant (one flower, full flush in probably a week or so)
Marie Pavie
Archduke Charles
Double Delight
Mutabilis (one flower)

other:
white potato vine
confederate jasmine
sambuc jasmine
salvia greggii
"bath's pink" dianthus
one purple coneflower
white guara "The Bride"
oxalis
blackfoot daisy
mexican feathergrass
larkspur
snapdragons & violas
abutilon "marilyn's choice" (never out of flower since I got it!)
verbena "homestead pink" under the tree
moss verbena
other trailing verbenas I've forgotten the names of
ice plant
mexican buckyeye
yellow & orange bulbine

And I end with a plea to the tech gurus reading this: how on earth do I fix my formatting? If I write my post as usual, and then go into the html window and backspace until there's only one space after my pictures, I end up with pictures and text that don't line up. It looks good to me in Firefox, Safari, and in Internet Explorer that I tried on another computer, but quite a few people have told me that I have huge spaces between my pictures. I have no idea what else to try!

8 comments:

Carol Michel said...

I love the picture of the shire, it looks so serene. If I get to Austin again, I won't missing see it, I can assure you.

On the spacing, go into the HTML code and if you see a bunch of the "div" HTML code, those could be causing all that spacing, too. Get rid of them. I don't know why they get put in there, but they do.

But I don't mind scrolling down a bit to see a picture of a pretty rose!

Thanks for joining in, and you ought to go ahead and leave a comment on my bloom day post, in case others are still working their way down the list. That way they'll find "the shire".

And are you sure there are no hobbits out there? I know there are garden fairies in that garden.

Carol, May Dreams Gardens

vertie said...

i hear you on the busy factor. I still haven't gotten my post up yet either! I just love your roses and can't wait to see your new bed and the guns.

Annie in Austin said...

Your list of roses is over the top impressive, Lori - you and MSS and Vicki amaze me with your knowledge and ability to discern the roses by scent. This is a lovely bloom day at The Shire.

You mentioned Siberian iris in a comment at my blog, and I think it's just luck they bloomed this year. They're on a slight slope, planted in amended heavy clay soil and I dump coffee grounds on them, water at least once a week and use John's Recipe. That area is sunny all winter but gets afternoon shade after the pecan leafs out. The bloom doesn't last long but the foliage is prettier than the bearded iris. Good luck!

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

growingagardenindavis said...

You have a wonderful collection of roses! I love larkspur too...yours is lovely. My abutilon blooms almost all year too...which is great for the hummingbirds...have you seen any at yours?

Anonymous said...

Your backyard DOES look like The Shire. So clean and orderly and yet relaxed and balanced all at the same time. It looks like a nice place to spend those warm summer evenings that will be upon us so soon! I am so impressed with your roses. They are beautiful. I will have to work on identifying the ones in my own yard.

Anonymous said...

The spacing looks just right to me, but maybe you already fixed it before I got here.

But on the narrow pictures, you need to add a "carriage return" (just press enter) between the picture and the next line of text so that the text starts on a new line.

Diana said...

Lori - Your calling it the Shire made me smile. Lovely resemblance. Your larkspur photo color is stunning. Wow. And your rose collection is beautiful. I'm envious. The double blooms are amazing. Do you baby them a lot to make them so healthy and prolific?

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