Happy Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, and thanks to Carol at
May Dreams Gardens for hosting. Today, gardeners all over talk about flowers blooming at home. Hop on over there later and check out her lovely garden, and the links to gardens everywhere.
Here in hot, humid Sugar Land (outside of Houston, TX, towards Richmond), it's hard to even go outside. I think this is the most difficult time to be a gardener around here. Fall is definitely on the horizon, but even the most faithful of us can't see it yet.
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| Sweet Autumn Clematis |
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| Passionflower |
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| Gulf Fritillary |
Nature seems to respond with vines. Flowering vines are a sight right now, from dainty little Sweet Autumn Clematis, which I talked about
earlier in the week, to dramatic blue passionflowers. I wish I could take a good picture of the passionflower vine when it is alive with Gulf Fritillary butterflies. It's almost eerie to see that many little creatures flittering around.
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| Purple flowers now, purple beans later. |
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| Pretty heart-shaped foliage, too. |
Oneof my favorite vines this time of year is Purple Hyacinth Bean, which has many different botanical names. I'm going to go with Dolichos lablab. This lovely vine not only produces pretty purple flowers, but brightly colored seedpods as well. I understand that every part of this vine is edible, except for the beans, which must be boiled first. It's too hot to boil anything, so I just like to look at it. Although it's an annual, it must reseed easily, because I've noticed it growing in the same place, year after year.
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| Pink Coral Vine |
My coral vine got off to a slow start, but it's coming along. The dark pink always seems a little bit more assertive than the white -- I don't have blooms on the white one yet.
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| You can see where I'm trying to prop this would-be vine up! |
Not really a vine, but it ought to be. I so wanted this dark blue Thunbergia battiscombei to climb but it won't. It just lays over on the ground, pretending to be a vine. Oh well!
I had hoped by this GBBD to have flowers on the 'Mauve Dancing Ladies' ginger, or Globba winitii, but no luck. Maybe in September!
Happy Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day and don't forget to visit
Carol's site for more flowers.
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Lovely array of blooms in your garden and great butterfly capture. I love the sweet Autumn Clematis... lost my a few years back. ;>)
ReplyDeleteGreat blooms and pictures- nice blog, too (love the pictures in "did you garden as a child"- I have some similar ones!). I'd love it if you would join us at the Tuesday Garden Party if you're interested, check us out:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.anoregoncottage.com/2010/08/tuesday-garden-party-planting-for-fall.html