Bloom Day July 2014

Happy Bloom Day for July and thank you to all the other garden bloggers that post all the amazing photos and the source for the whole day http://www.maydreamsgardens.com/.  Thank you for inspiring me to share my garden and for sharing yours, please visit May Dreams Gardens to see her's and so many others...

On to my blooms...

We are in a drought here in California, not that you would know it from my pictures. But the lawn is on its last strands and the spring veggies were left to flower for the bees.  Yet that has left water for the rest of the yard and collection.

And right now everything is scrambling to bloom, perhaps in a scramble to survive in anyway possible watching the water being so much more selective.  Or maybe it is just that time.

This is Mirabilis longiflora which either really scrambling to make more seed than ever or has just really come into its prime size after four years.  It is a perennial, zones 7-10, that grows a large underground tuber that it returns from each late spring after going to sleep and dying back to the ground each fall.  

It is a four o'clock, but not the common one you would associate with that name, and oh so much more fragrant.  It is a great evening scented garden plant.  I have them planted with several Brugmansias to add to that effect.

Amazing long flower tubes to boot.

Now walking past them the tiger lilies are in full bloom.  You can see the orange above and here they are closer.

I believe they are Lilium lancifolium or Lilium tigrinium, but I did not buy them. I started the first ones 12 years ago from some bulbils from a specimen at an old and now gone favorite restaurant.  The bulbils grow on each leaf of the upper third to two-thirds of mature plants.  They grow the first year as a single leaf, the next as a small stalk with five to ten leaves, and then take off. These are about five years old

And growing near by, actually right along side Mirabilis longiflora, is one of my favorite Brugmansias, this is 'Pink Perfection' that I have had for about five years now and it has reached a nice 8-10 feet tall.

It is a double with color and that actually has the double extended out of the outer flower and opens fully unlike the common double white that is a tight wad of blooms.

A leek that I left in the veggie garden to set seed.

 Here is Antirrhinum majus ‘Chantilly Peach’ catching a little of the morning fog...

Digitalis obscura "Sunset Foxglove"

Fuchsia 'Nettala'

Bomarea 'Fiesta' climbing up 12 feet to grab a little sun and some humming bird beaks.  I believe it is Bomarea caldasii.

Begonia luxurians

I'll have to post more photos of that Begonia as it is the Palm leaf begonia. One unlike any other and it grows 4-6 feet tall... but since this all about Blooms you get just that photo for now...

And now walking over the the cloud forest corner of the back yard and more Brugmansias. First the tight wadded up 'Double White' this is one that is found in several yards around town and go back as far as anyone remembers.  Since I have a couple newer hybrids with better descending ones I call these the common double white or the classic double white--but no one appointed me to name anything so it may not matter...

Next Brugmansia x versicolor 'Ecuador Pink' showing a little less due to dry ground.  The dead branches are from a couple days hard frost last winter so all in all it is doing great being nocked around by the seasons.

Brugmansia 'Emerald Frost' (A frosty pink with slight green on green variegated leaves)

Brugmansia 'Sera' one of my own hybrids yet to be registered

Another unnamed hybrid off a Frosty pink plant that I hybridized.  It is just like one on the market called 'Betty Marshal' but I think of them as the wild white as the pink and yellow ones of the this variety mostly revert to this white.

Fuchsia fulgens variegata

Some sort of Ismene × festalis (syn. Hymenocallis × festalis) 

Lupinus arboreus

A nice and easy, if a bit weedy, Nicotiana. These came up the next year from a variety called Bella that was red, or got into the garden on its own... 

Fuchsia 'Michael's Yellow Surprise'

Some Borage to feed the bees

Impatiens glandulifera

And since anticipation is one of the major fuels in a love of gardening here is a bud yet to find its glory.  A sunflower volunteering after surviving the beaks at the bird feeder.