LITTLE POPS OF COLOR

I have often mentioned how red was my least favorite color among garden flowers. But there are beginning to be more and more times when I eat my own words, and that time is now. Sometimes red gives that little pop of color which just brings the whole garden to life.

Whereas spring in the front courtyard is mainly about the blues, whites and yellows, fall is mainly about the the varied greens of the grasses and other textured plants. The salvia, Salvia greggii, dormant all summer, spring into life. One of those straggly plants that every year I think of removing until now. Here, straggly looks better than bushy as their arching branches reach over the rocks.

In another corner of this garden the same is true of the firecracker fern. I have seen magnificent displays of this plant when grown in good soil but mine stays rather short and retiring until rain and cooler temperatures bring out the bloom.

Under the shade of the Lady Banks rose, dormant all summer, the shy and retiring Oxblood lilies, Rhodophiala bifida, respond to a good soaking rain by sending up their naked blooms. And what a show they put on this year.

And in the back garden there are the annual strawberry gomphrena, Gomphrena globosa and spider zinnia, Zinnia tenuifolia, and they are red too. Although they usually reseed each year I still save save seeds just in case we have an unusually hard winter.

Another red flowering plant that will be moved into the garage for winter is the Japanes Lantern hibiscus, Hibiscus schizopetalus. It is certainly worthy of a home in the entry garden, if only for its exotic frilled bloom.

Look how deep the color is on the blanket flower, Gaillardia pulchella. Cooler nights are responsible for the depth of color. All flowers seem to take on more color during the fall.

Yes. Red is good.

TROPICAL CONDITIONS FOR A TROPICAL PLANT

 We are experiencing a heat wave. Having just tolerated the warmest May on record and with summer not even started we are all feeling mighty nervous about what is to come. My second red flowering plant of the month is feeling right at home. Variously named the Japanese lantern flower, spider hibiscus, fridge flower, Hibiscus schizopetalus, hails not from Japan but tropical East Africa.

They are the most exotic of all the flowers I grow. The ephemeral frilled flowers with their lacy curved-back petals and their dangling stamens certainly don't look as though they belong in Texas. And don't be fooled by their dangling over my water feature. The plant is in a pot and barely 2 years old.

The first time I came across the plant was in a greenhouse at the Western Colorado Botanical Gardens  in Grand Junction, Colorado. Then again in the garden of a San Antonio friend. She very kindly brought me two cuttings both of which took. I overwinter the plants in the garage where they remain semi evergreen. As they bloom on short spurs on last years wood pruning must be kept to a minimum. One plant I pruned to a single trunk and the other has three long stems arising from the base. . Every day new blooms open and bring a little touch of the exotic to my garden.

At 2:30 pm the temperature outside is 96º F and with the humidity feels like 109ºF.

HERE YESTERDAY, GONE TODAY

When I saw this flower growing in Melody McMahon's garden in San Antonio she promised me some cuttings. I met up with her last summer at the Texas Hill Country Olive ranch where she passed on a couple of those cuttings. I was delighted when they survived the winter indoors. I repotted them in late winter and a few weeks ago I noticed what appeared to be a baby flower bud. Yesterday the bloom opened and I was there to photograph it.

The flower is a member of the hibiscus family, Hibiscus schizopetalus, known more commonly as coral hibiscus, Japanese lantern and native to tropical East Africa. The lacy flowers, which hang from a long pedicet, are deeply pinnately lobed and curve backwards to expose the stamens.
 The bloom was short lived and today had fallen off. So glad I caught this beautiful bloom and hope the summer will bring many more.