Blooming & Growing in August

That Momo Botan is gorgeous!

X- That Lady Margaret is lovely. I'm going to have to find that one. I have the run of the mill white and purple ones- I've trained them to overrun the evil cottonwoods. I think the passifloras are winning this year.

Anyone else lost their grip on their garden? With all this rain it looks like a jungle out there and the vines have gone wild!

I never liked passies until I discovered they came in other colors besides blue and purple.

X

Love your morning glory, X.

Yes to losing my grip on the garden. I'm trying to keep the ones in the house in some kind of order, but the rest...whoa! Makes me sigh every time I go out.

Morning glory? I looked back and didn't see that I posted the Fujishibori this month. It's been a winner as far a blooming and beauty, but a bust for seeds .. so far only 1! .. I've taken some cuttings to root.

The Fujishibori surprised me the other day by producing a flag. It's a specialize petal that appears on a filament where anthers usually are along with the other reproductive parts. This doesn't occur very often but is sometimes mistaken for doubling.

X

"almost forgot the Jacquemontia pringlei morning glory "

Lol .. I forgot .. for a moment I forgot that it was deemed a morning glory. I'm so used to Ipomoea as a morning glory I keep forgetting about the rest,

The Jacquemontia is a grow out for another member of Daves' who is a morning glory expert .. he sends me seeds from time to time to grow out for flower and structure pictures. For 2 years now I've been trying to get seeds out of this bush but nothing ever takes.

Here is one of the pictures I took for him. This year the purple/blue finally showed up .. last year they were all white and only a bare hint of the purple.

X

lobelia cardinalis "Ruby Slippers" - very happy with all the rain.

Unknown wildflower growing at our pond (aquatic or at least marginal aquatic).

I partial to that color red! Really beautiful!

Also, my lisianthus have seed pods!

X

Very pretty, some form of sagetteria maybe?

I walked the Old Point area of Beaufort today and came across some pretties.

Sweet Autumn Clematis

Wild Turk's Cap hibiscus. Not sure if this is a native or not but it pops up in the weediest of places.

Pretty show off.

My Candle Bush, Senna alata aka Cassia alata has started to bloom. I started the seeds for these just last March and they went from seedlings to over 8 feet tall and blooming in about 5 and a half months!

I've also got some Blackberry Lily blooming too I grew from seed .. it was suppose to be Candy Lily. This is now the 4th time I've traded for Candy Lily seeds and ended up with Blackberry Lily. I guess a lot of people do not realize there is a difference.

X

Both of them have that "canda" part in the name.

Candy Lily - Pardancanda norissi

Blackberry Lily - Belamcanda chinensis

The true candy lily is a cross between Pardanthopsis and Belamcanda and look almost identical in structure. The difference is that the Pardancanda has a vastly different color range.

X

Great pictures, everyone. Guess I better post my pictures from this past week before it's September.

Rotheca myricoides, formerly known as Clerodendrum ugandense. I just love the blue colors. It's not cold-hardy here so I keep it in the garage over the winter - it loses all its leaves and looks dead but will revive in the spring some water and sunshine.

More Gloriosa superba. There is a variety of this that has orange flowers but I haven't been able to find anyone who sells it.

Some of my other gingers are trying to bloom but how well they do will depend on how much rain we get. Somehow most of the showers and storms have bypassed my neighborhood and my lawn is brown and dying and I have to water a lot. We did get half an inch of rain last week but it's not nearly enough.

I'm pretty sure this is 'Daniel Weeks'

Beautiful! Especially that formerly known as Clerodendrum! None of my hedychiums have bloomed yet .. only the curcumas!

X

Tom, nice! My hedys are blooming, too. I have 'Daniel Weeks' and it's been blooming for a few weeks and 'Tahitian Flame' has just started. I love them. I'm buying more!

I can't believe they have changed another name. Aggggghhhhhhhhh My poor old brain had hard enough of a time with the original clerodenderon ugandense.

Do these name changing folks just need to make work to keep their jobs or something????? LOL

I'm with you Alice .. I'm sure DNA has something to do with it. Jeeze .. can't believe tomorrow is September!

X

Lol

lol. Love it.

LOL at the picture. My neighbors cats have a habit of ending up in strange places, pampas grass seems to be a favorite of theirs. My only thought is they'll find snakes before I do.

This message was edited Sep 1, 2009 9:11 AM

As pampas grass matures the original plant dies off and there is a cave like place in the middle which seems to be filled with soft downy material from the plumes. It makes a great nest for the marsh rats. I am pretty sure this is what attracts both cats and snakes. When we bought this house there were giant pampas grasses on either side of the driveway and we used to see the baby rats running back and forth between the grasses. Needless to say that stuff was shovel pruned quickly.

I've seen big honkin snakes go into pampas grass. Never have really like that stuff.

X

That's exactly where the cats like, that hollow spot inside the pampas. I never see rats so the cats must be doing their job well. There is also a big rat snake that I see every couple of months or so, I leave him alone to do his thing. That snake seem to be to big for the cats.

Here's a new snake that turned up last week, think we got the ID right. http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/snakes/nerery.htm
I thought it was a cotton mouth at first sight but after I got a little closer it turned out to be one of those I think.

Man, I was going to plant Pampas Grass. We have 3 cats but I don't want to temp snakes or rats in. Can anyone suggest good plants for screening?

Pampas grass also has blades like razors; It is really dangerous and hard to cut it back. There are some nice viburnums that make good screens. Woodley's nursery in Irmo is outrageously expensive but they really know their plants. You might want to check out their material and pick their brains then go elsewhere and buy.

I burn my pampas down to prune it. LOL> I like the look of the pampas but for a screen I would probably pick something else. It is sharp but not sharp enough to stop someone from going through it and it doesn't fill in that well for a screen, they can get very big if you don't prune them but the middles will die off. Viburnum do make a nice screen but if you don't prune the bottons out they will attract snakes. Actually any large bushes that are left undistrubed are going to attract snakes.

Depending on how much sun the area gets you have a wide number of evergreens that will do the job. In a shadier area I would go for some bigger camellias, if you work those right you can have one blooming all winter long.

LOL Lori, don't panic. We have an abundance of snakes down here in this jungle called the Lowcountry. You will have far fewer snakes in the Midlands.

Camellias would be wonderful but it will take decades to get them to size where they will screen. Although, I have a friend who recently sold a very large, screen size one for $2000. Maybe he has a few more. LOL

I have some gorgeous camellias at our new house. I think they must be almost 20 years old. One is 1 1/2 stories tall. They don't grow that way in Florida! I'm used to snakes, of course, but don't want to encourage them. We always had a blacksnake around my old house. I named them all Fred to make them easier to be around. My son saw a black snake up here and said Fred had moved also.

Smart boy, LOL Your camellias sound wonderful, it will be lovely next winter.