RIGHT PLANT WRONG PLACE, BLUEBONNET PURGE.

I couldn't help but smile when I read this. They are talking about bluebonnets, our Texas State flower.

"While it may be a myth that picking the beautiful blue flowers is illegal, conservation is crucial to preserving these delicate native plants"

Delicate native plants indeed! Not where I live. And I do believe the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center would agree with me on that. That is why they are smart to make a dedicated bluebonnet patch within their garden because otherwise the plant would just take over the whole garden.

 

That is exactly what happened in all of my inside gardens. I am asking myself why did I let this happen again because I have learnt from experience that if I let them grow in here I will spend hours pulling them after they are spent.  Not to mention the poor plants which struggle to grow beneath them and how it impedes walking through the garden. For the last three days I have pulled hundred, piling them in various places under the trees. If they ripen, all well and good, if not then I still have hundreds more whose seed I can collect for places where I want them to grow. It was imperative to remove them before the rain came....and it di. 4.2" over three soggy days.

Ah! The other plants in the gravel can breathe again. The skullcaps, Scutellaria sp.blackfoot dasies, Melampodium leucanthum, mealy blue sage. Salvia farinacea. These much more mannerly plants who will only occupy a small area. I am more than happy to have them brighten up the larger expanses of gravel.

An occasional ruby crystal grass or Mexican feather grass. 

My absolute favorite fro this gravel garden is the purple skullcap, Scutellaria wrightii, I prune it to a more rounded shape in the spring and scatter the seeds around in the fall.

The other players permitted to remain in this garden are ruby crystal grass, Melinus nerviglumis, Mexican feather grass, Nasella tennuisima and a modest amount of love-in-a-mist Nigella damascena.

I will remind myself next year that this is the look I prefer and certainly saves days of work.

THE ENGLISH GARDEN...NOT EXACTLY

I named the English garden for the dry stone wall I created. A reminder of my childhood in the north of England where drystone walls were created to divide farmers' fields. I quickly discovered when we started building the house that there was a wealth of perfect stone at my fingertips. Flat pieces of stone suitable for building stone walls without any mortar. I began saving them and shortly after we moved in the house I began the project.

The wall creates a raised bed which follows the curved wall which encloses the garden. This was really necessary if I wanted to grow anything.
I love to capture the sun just as it peaks through the archway in the morning.

It lights up the Mexican feather grasses.

Not all English gardens are cottage gardens with lawns. In England there are many gravel gardens and gardens planted in the Mediterranean style, and although I didn't imagine this at the time, it is the way the garden developed and it made sense to eliminate lawns completely. It would have been so much work getting a lawnmower in here and so much more water to keep it looking good. Instead I decided on gravel and I am really happy with the way it looks most of the time.

In my usual style a majority of the plants growing in the gravel have self-seeded and although it is work to keep it under control when it is at its best it looks great.

I confess I did plant the silver leaf gazania last year and it survived the winter.

A few days ago the gazania was looking wonderful and then with the heat yesterday and today it just started to wilt. Maybe the underlying soil was just too wet from all the rain we have had this spring.
One of my favorite flowers which have had wonderful success are the skullcaps-particularly the native Wright's skullcap, Scutellaria wrightii. It is one of the few plants that will last all through the year and with an early spring trim will stay in a mounding shape. When I prune off old growth I walk around sprinkling the seed into other areas. That and the Blackfoot daisy, Melampodium leucanthum, require no irrigation.

An English garden should have roses and yes there are a few of these but I could be doing so much better. I originally planted 3 knockout roses around the birdbath in memory of my mother and a friend who died of breast cancer. Then added 3 white ones in between. Unfortunately one of the red ones died and I have been planning to replace it for several years. Yes, with just another knockout rose but quite honestly they are fuss free-so far. No bugs, no blackspot and as long as they don't get rose rosette disease they will stay. And if that happens I will switch to salvias.

But my other roses are not doing so well. So far this year Felicia has had blackspot and thrips but still still she has managed to provide me with wonderful fragrance when I have been working outside.
My idea was to replicate the pillar roses I had seen at Mottisfont, but then I am afraid I don't have their expertise. It's not too late to give them a big trim back because Felicia is a reliable repeat bloomer through the season.

But my big failure has been in that raised bed I created. I never put any thought into the planting and just put plants in there willy nilly. Mostly passalongs. The shasta daisies have almost taken over one section and the pale pavonias are crowding out other plants with their scrappy stems reaching for the sun. One side gets more sun than the other and the vines on the wall have moved into the beds. It is my plan to overhaul the whole bed or in the very least move some plants out of there. But that has been in the plan for a few years so we will see how far I get this year.

The garden is always a work in progress.

HOW TO DO IT WITH WILDFLOWERS

The front courtyard garden is blooming with Texas native wildflowers and has entered its most floriferous season. Using short season wildflowers in the landscape requires some structural specimens as well as hardscape. We are fortunate to have some great agaves that do the job well.

Under the whales tongue agave, A. ovatifolia, the once blooming flowers of Tulipa hummilis, have been replaced by flowering purple skullcap, Scutellaria wrightii, and yellow blooming square bud primrose, Calylophus berlandieri. The skull caps will bloom all summer if given a trim back after flowering.

And on the other side beyond the Mexican feather grass is the damianita, Chrysactinia mexicana with its aromatic, fine-leaved shrubby foliage.

Of course the bluebonnets, Lupinus texensis, being an annual will soon be gone but the accompanying blackfoot daisies, Melampodium leucanthum, will bloom all summer and will be at their best in the fall.

Blackfoot daisy

The claret cup cactus flower, Echinocereus triglochidiatus, is one of my favorite. The flower is longer lasting than many cactus flowers.

In a shady corner, and there aren't many in this garden, baby blue eyes, Nemophila phaceliodes.

A few seeds gathered from some flowers on an unbuilt lot and I now have several clumps of Barbara's buttons, Marshallia caespitosa. They are perennial but when summer comes the foliage dies back only to appear again in late winter.

Lyre leaf sage, Salvia lyrata, pops up all over the garden and would make a great ground cover with its attractively pattered leaves.

One of my favorite places to sit in the garden is in the breezeway between the garage and house There I can enjoy the view of this part of the garden with flowers and bubbling water feature. Yesterday I watched the wrens flying back and forward building a nest in-between the pots on the top shelf of the cactus theater.

Such messy builders but such fun to watch.

I hope you are enjoying spring in your garden wherever you are.

GARDEN BLOGGERS' BLOOM DAY, MAY 2017

It has been a while since I posted on bloom day. Suddenly it was upon me and I had no time to gather the photos.

Surely the opening photograph for this month's Bloom day post has to be the Monarda 'Peter's Purple' He's certainly King of the garden at the moment.

And Queen of the May garden is the blanket flower, Gaillardia pulchella. Not so easy negotiating the pathways at the moment.

And we have a princess too,  Clematis texensis 'Princess Diana'. What a beauty she is. Just a few weeks ago there was no sign of growth and I was sure I had lost the plant over the winter. In less than a month she has grown to almost cover the trellis.

So many bloomers. The spineless prickly pear, with two different blooms on the same plant.

I wonder why that is?

And all the day lilies.

All but the tiny orange one without names.
Echinacea purpurea, just coming into bloom.

The larkspurs, love-in-a-mist and poppies have finished already but blackfoot daisies, Melampodium leucanthum,  still keep going.

Among the other natives, the purple skullcap, Scutellaria wrightii.

Which pairs well in a rock garden setting with the square bud primrose, Calylophus berlandieri, and pink skullcaps.

Square bud primrose with ruby crystal grasses

Pink skull cap seeded in the dry creek

Scabiosa back for the third year. A rescue plant.

And Texas betony, Stachys coccinea, not a showy plant but the hummingbirds love it.

Another native, horsemint, Monarda citriodora.

The native chocolate daisy, Berlandiera lyrata, with its delicious chocolate fragrance.

And for the first time in a while success with Cleome.

These are just a few of the flowers that are blooming in my rocky Texas garden in mid May.

Thank you Carol at Maydreams gardens for hosting Bloom day. Find out what is growing in other gardens this May Bloom Day.