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Thursday, June 27, 2013

WHO LIKES THIS KIND OF HEAT?

Today is another stinker. A couple of hours outside in the morning and then I'm holed up in the house for the rest of the day.


But there are a few plants in my garden that seem unaffected by such temperatures. Let's see who is not afraid of the heat.


This gomphrena may be called 'fireworks' but it will be around long after July 4th.


Chocolate may melt in the sun but chocolate daisy, Berlandiera lyrata, shows up every morning.


This is their time of year. Scutellaria wrightii is a native so why not.


"All I want is the sun, forget the water",  says the Ruellia.


"And my petals are made of paper" says the statice. Not much to dry out there.


"I don't even show up until the heat of summer is turned on full", says the plumbago.


The most prolific of all is the blanket flower, Gaillardia pulchella. It just enjoys every season.


Texas lantana will sneak up on every patch of bare ground.


As will the narrow leaf zinnia. The mild winter has meant a proliferation of seedlings.


"With my feet in the water I have the best spot of all" says Helvola.
Let's see what we all look like at the end of the summer!

20 comments:

  1. I just found the Fireworks gomphrena this spring at Hewitt Garden Center. I put a lot of them out in two gardens. Glad to see from your photo that I did not waste space or money. It looks great. And how I wish the nurseries here had offered zinnia angustifolia. I should have found some seeds. We are in the mugs here in Nashville as well. Nauseating heat and humidity-

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    1. I hope they do well for you. They love summer heat and it isn't too late to put seeds in along with seeds of the narrow leaf zinnia. I save mine every year.

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  2. If you lasted two hours out in the sun, you do better than me! I've had enough after 10 minutes! Your gardens are certainly well suited to the climate, your photos are lovely :-)

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  3. I wish my gomphrena looked that good when I planted it last year. I tried fireworks as well and it was a total dud for me. No idea why. They are so pretty in your photo, I am jealous.

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    1. They do like a lot of heat so are rarely at their best until the end of summer.

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  4. I don't like this heat at all and I call this time of the year 'entering the furnace'. I always imagine that if my ancestors had known what a Texas summer was like, the cheap farmland prices of the 1910s would still not have been enough to coax them from moving from Iowa and Illinois, and Denmark!
    Thanks for posting the flowers that are thriving just now. I take notes from your blog on what to try for next summer. Happily, these are all plants I have already...yea! (except for that chocolate daisy) That will be added next summer.
    Besides that first hour or two in the morning, I can manage a bit of time from 7:30-8:30 as long as there is a breeze and no bugs. David/:0)

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    1. The chocolate daisy is a real winner. I cut it back around now so that it will perform again in the fall.

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  5. I would melt in heat like that--ugh!
    Amazing how something as delicate looking as those plumbagos can withstand that much heat. How lovely!

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    1. I do have the plumbago in shade from the brutal afternoon sun but I see others in full sun around town.

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  6. I have many of those great looking, heat loving flowers. Does your Gaillardia bloom all summer? I have the annual wildflower and they are beginning to wrap up their blooming season and die back.

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  7. You certainly have the right flowers for that heat! They are lovely.
    Here it's 80-90 degrees and I only lasted half an hour in half shade because I had to finish putting in lamb's ears before they wilted completely. And the umbrella is up over my heat-sensitive red rose bush!

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  8. What a beautiful collection. You've planted your gardens for four-season interest.

    Would love to see a post sometime on the butterflies attracted to your flowers.

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  9. Ugh and ick and honestly - I hate feeling forced indoors so much of the day but once we get hit with the triples, every time I try to go outside, I wilt. Your blooms are obviously wisely chosen, made of stronger stuff than I, and a couple of new names are now on my list:"plants for next year if it EVER cools off again".

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  10. I feel your pain. It is really hot on my side of Texas too. I need to add a few of your heat resistant plants to my garden. We are also lacking in rain.

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  11. I've been deliberately selecting heat and drought tolerant plants since mid-spring, given predictions of a brutal summer. I've got several of those you show. I've had my eyes open to find that chocolate daisy here in SoCal but it doesn't appear to be available anywhere. Even though I can see the ocean from our backyard, our temps have climbed into the mid-90s so heat tolerance is clearly a must for plants at my "new" house. (Temps in my former neighborhood, less than 15 miles away, run a good 10 degrees lower.) Stay cool - hopefully, this current western "dome of heat", as I heard a weather forecaster refer to it today, will abate a bit later in the week.

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  12. Thanks for sharing your summer survivor plants! This past week has shown me who the needy plants are in the garden, and it's good to have a running list of replacements (like the statice, a lovely shade of cool). Thank goodness for this morning's rain...

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  13. wow, such flowering!!

    Not much is flowering in my patch here. boo hoo.

    Do you deadhead that Gaillardia pulchella? I want more of those as mine are performing very well.

    Do you know that NONE, not one single one, of my lantanas has bloomed this year??!!?! It's a mystery!

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  14. I'm starting to see scutellarias now at local Los Angeles nurseries, and Annie's Annuals was carrying S. suffrutescens which was very tempting. I've never grown them before. I have tried the berlandiera in my gravel garden and it didn't last long. I was hoping to get it to reseed like you do. That ruellia is a stunner too -- so much to learn from your garden, Jenny.

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  15. Such a wonderful display of lush and beautiful flowers. I planted gomphrena this year, and I am looking forward to that display. And I love those chocolate daisies.

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  16. We had these temps last year at this time which makes our current temps in the 80s seem cool by comparison. Your garden sure looks great however!

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