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!

More roses!

The big show right now is being put on by Maggie, who is also wonderfully scented. Weirdly, her scent is very changeable from day-to-day, but usually rich and rosy. However, on one bizarre occasion-- and I am not making this up-- her flowers smelled like Miller Lite. (I made two friends smell the flowers in question to make sure I wasn't insane, and yup, lousy American beer. )

Here's Louis Philippe, who is doing wonderfully in part-shade. Check out the lighter petal reverse-- I love the depth it gives to the bloom. L. Philippe's flowers start off cupped, and stay that way if it's cold:

But when it's warm, he looks like this:

















This bush is rather leggy, so I recommend planting in groups of three or at the back of the border. The Antique Rose Emporium does this too.


Double Knockout, burning my retinas, but look at that form!

Sweet relief! This is the first decent picture I've gotten of my Blushing Knockout. I love the delicate coloring and form, like a wild rose:

The Pink Double Knockout. I take back what I said about this bush lacking charm, because unlike the other Knockouts, it's actually scented! And it's scented enough that I, with my lousy sense of smell, could smell it from two feet away! I would describe the scent as a sort of spicy tea rose, very pleasant.

My only hybrid tea, Double Delight. This one also clashes with my color scheme in being too warmly red, but every time I'm about to give it away, it blooms with huge vanilla-scented blooms, and well...

Double Delight also changes color with sun and heat. This is the same bloom a day later. When it's really sunny and hot, the whole flower turns red.

The last day of Abraham Darby in bloom:

And now I think it's time for the first lawn mowing of the season. A few days ago I had a ribbon-cutting ceremony like Carol, but mine was quite literal, as I fired up my electric mower and then promptly ran over the power cord and sliced it to ribbons. Oops? Or rather: Welcome to spring!

Souvenir de la Escargot