Blooming and Growing In July

The seeds for this MG were a gift from another DG'er.
NICE gift. :)

Deb-

That looks like "Grandpa Ott." One of my favs. Very pretty. You really caught the color. The purples are so tough to photograph.

Wow the Journey's End Canna is beautiful. Here's a canna blooming in my yard just after a small shower today. I don't really even know the name of it.

That's a pretty lemony yellow!

X

I haven't seen Sinningia before. That's gorgeous!

I love the way morning glory looks like there is a little light in their throats.

X

I have that MG and I believe it's "Grandpa Ott."

Well between Core and B&J, that's two votes for "Grandpa Ott", so two out of three DG'ers can't be wrong! :>
Thanks for the I.D.

Inquisitive: That sure is apretty Canna. I like the speckles.

Took a picture of the MG late afternoon so it was about finished.

There's that MG 'spotlight". It's why I love them.
I might have a photo of blue Lisianthus today, except DH decided to pressure wash the house yesterday. This -of course - requires dragging the hose around all sides, through every bed and shrub.

Suffice to say the carnage was nearly too much for me to take. I walked slowly around the garden, suppressing the urge to scream OMG! at every turn.

Lisianthus were in a pot that went upside down, NG Impatiens snapped off at soil level, banana leaves busted in two, 3 or 4 gingers, broken mid stem, Canna bloom stalks - missing, Astilbe and Gaura - crushed.

He said - "Small price to pay for the house looking so nice." Sigh. I told hiim how nice it looked and offered "next time" to guide the hose around for him, if only he'd warn me ahead of time.

sorry - had to vent. :)

LOL, I feel you pain.
My DH has a thing about how I should always look where I am walking (well, I am kind of a klutz.) However, he NEVER looks before stepping into the flower beds. My dog never steps on flowers but I can't say the same for Phil.

It's getting pretty dry around here. We had about 1/4" of rain today but not nearly enough. Not much new blooming.

Lilium 'Black Beauty' is starting to bloom...

Hibiscus 'Moy Grande' ...

Sinningia 'Carangola' again. I'm very pleased with the number of flowers it has (there are even more on the left/back side of the plant out of the camera's view in this picture).

Tom- stop posting pictures of that sinningia; I'm in love!

What is the secret to lilies? They hate me.

@bordersandjacks - not sure what the secret to lilies might be. I think it's good luck and finding lilies that aren't appetizing to voles and other critters. I've found that the species lilies and old hybrids (such as 'Black Beauty' and 'Mrs R.O. Backhouse') are the toughest. I used to have a lot more cultivars but a lot of them have recently failed to reappear after the winter after doing well for years. Recent casualties include 'Casa Blanca', 'Tom Pouce', and 'Scheherazade'. In addition to sticking to the old tried-and-true varieties, my advice would be to heed the zone hardiness recommendations (some lilies don't do well south of zone 7) and make sure they are planted in soil that doesn't get too dry during the growing season and has consistently good drainage especially in winter when they're dormant.

Tom, I agree, that Sinningia is gorgeous!

Thanks for your sympathies, Ardesia. I can relax now until it's time to clean the gutters!! ;>

That one is outright stunning Tom. I am going to have to find a picture of my S. sellovi; they don't even look like cousins.

My Corkscrew Vine has been incredible this year .. I've never seen it so full of flowers before.

The Franklin alatamaha is blooming too .. wish I knew someone else in Summerville who had one so we could cross pollinate. I've never gotten a seed pod in the 7 years I've had it.

And I am pleased to see how pretty the Caladiums and Brugmansia are together.

X

X-

Pretty caladiums and brugs. What exposure do your brugs get there? I've had to stick mine in full shade. They croak otherwise.

The brugs, except the one on the far left only get 1 1/2 hours of full sun a day. The rest of the time it's bright shade .. they usually won't start blooming until late August. The trick to brugs in full sun is water and more water and more water. Ideally brugs like morning sun and after noon shade, That's what the ones in the back yard get.

X

The Franklin alatamaha is very hard to get seeds from. There is an organization who is on the look out for any naturally pollinated seeds. Seems to be the holy grail for that tree.

The big problem is a genetic bottleneck .. all the trees out there are descendants of the original one that John Bartram brought back from his travels in the late 1700's. With such a weak gene pool, it's hard to get seeds, much less viable seeds.

X

X, your Corkscrew vine blooms look great! Mine hasn't started yet, but it's first cousin Snail vine is.

This Curcuma has multiplied since last year. "Dancing Ladies" - can't recall the latin name at the mo'.
Edited to add,...Duh - not a curcuma, it's Globba winitii. :)

This message was edited Jul 17, 2009 8:26 PM

...and finally, NOID $2 sale daylily. :)

Here's an odd one, colored cotton flowering.

Odd, perhaps, but very pretty blossom.

I have pardancanda norisii (Candy Lily) today.

That is pretty! I love the yellow & orange bi-color. Home mine bloom soon .. I keep looking for a flower stalk.

X

Deb - That's a really pretty candy lily. I used to have ones with different colors as well but over the years they reverted to the common orange w/red speckles variety that looks mostly like a large blackberrry lily (Belamcanda). At least for me, they seem to be rather short-lived perennials and you'd need to collect seeds from the most colorful ones and cull out the plain ones to maintain variety. But, as I recall, the ones with more vividly-colored flowers tended to be less vigorous and produce fewer seeds than the plain ones. Good luck with yours! You may want to manually pollinate it (or cross-pollinate it with others with desirable colors) to ensure a good supply of seeds.

Not much new is blooming yet... we did finally get some rain on Friday but it's still too dry.

Here's Aloe cooperi ...

Gloriosa superba 'Rothschildiana' - if anyone in the Raleigh area wants some let me know and I'll be glad to drop by with some plants or we could meet somewhere. I have extras that I meant to bring to the RU at Lake Benson but I forgot.

Beautiful flowers Tom. How do you propagate the Rothschild? Break off pieces of the rhizome????

Tom: Golly - what a gorgeious blossom!
Thanks for the tips about my Candy Lilies.
Deb

Oh, yeah Tom:)) I was signed up for that one...Sometime this week? I'd have to be either Wed. or Thurs for me. You have my #
Bev

Harrumph! My gloriosa lily decided to bloom, and then die immediately. Bad plant! I'm not giving up, though.

Resurrection lily

ardesia - Gloriosas pretty much propagate themselves. I always end up with too many and compost the extras. Each single rhizome will usually grow into 2 or sometimes 3 new rhizomes during the summer; when they go dormant you will find the new rhizomes attached at the base in sort of a "V" shape and the old rhizome from the previous season has dried up and will fall off. If you want to you can break apart the branched rhizomes at the base (be sure to keep them dry to allow the broken end to "cure" (but I just leave them as-is). You cannot, however, break a single rhizome into multiple pieces - the only growth bud is at the far end and pieces of rhizome from the middle will not form new growth buds. The key to getting them through the winter is to keep them from rotting. I keep them in their containers in the garage over the winter (just leave them in the dry potting mix) and in the spring I remove the viable rhizomes and replant them in fresh potting mix. It is possible to overwinter them in the ground in zone 8a+ as long as the site has very good drainage.

We got some more rain today - it's still on the dry side but getting better. Forecast is for a chance of rain every day this week - l hope that works out.

Here's Hymenocallis 'Tropical Giant'. It's a bit beaten up from the rain.

Lycoris squamigera - also beaten up by the rain.