What's blooming in April

Goldfinches aka thistle-aholics.

Handsome male cardinal reminding me I need to get weeding!

Tung Oil Tree at my friend's house in McClellanville

Closeup of the blooms Tung Oil Tree

Atamasco (?) Lily?
Blooming in the lawns of many houses in McClellanville SC

Gotta love the Tung Oil tree. It can be grown easily from the seeds but watch your head picking them up; the pod is almost the size of a tennis ball but much heavier and it hurts like heck when one beans you. You don't want to park your car under them either.

Close up of flowers
sorry, sent this twice

This message was edited Apr 14, 2009 5:20 PM

Tung Oil Tree! I have noticed this tree in bloom around town in past seasons and have never been able to figure out what it was. Thank you, Pyro!! :)

This is Clematis "Elsa Spaeth", weighing down the poor little rose it's twined around.
Deb

Ooh, I am lusting for clematis, now.

Down, Lorie Down! Go sit in your garden and do not buy one more plant until you have everything planted!
(yeah, right!)

Lorie

LOL. Funny, Lorie. :D I've made that promise myself.

Ditto, Lorie. I've grounded myself until I get the rest in the ground.

Or at least HALF of them!

There you go Pyro another clematis.

Famous Last Words......... :-)

NOID

Bottle bush in full bloom now.

AACCCKK! MUST.....HAVE.....BOTTLEBRUSH!!!!!!

You know, when I was a little kid we used to have bottlebrush around the foundation of our house. I used to always have the red blooms stuck in my hair, and boy are they sticky!!! Pretty picture, but I have no desire to own one. :)

Here is one that is blooming for me in April. This is not my photo, but is in the Plant File. My grandaughter dropped our digital camera in the sand at Myrtle Beach a month ago, and it will not work any more. UGH!!! The botanical name is Erysimum 'Bowles Mauve', (Perennial Wallflower). It has a nice purple color and interesting structure. Original 2 plants were bought last year and have done very well so far. What I like best about the plants is ... they do not have floppy branches and the spent flowers are easy to eliminate. Here is the link to the Plant File ...
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/110515/

Karin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had just about given up on this hybrid rhodo-azalea thingy. (Hybrid Deciduous Azalea
Rhododendron x 'Aromi Sunny Side Up'), since it bloomed the first year, did nothing last year, and appeared to be
circling the drain no matter what I did.

But - a miracle - here it is, just starting to bloom. :)
Deb

Oh, I love that one; be nice to it Deb. :-)

That's lovely, Deb. I like your description, "circling the drain"- I have some of those and am contemplating a mercy killing.

LOL. Well, I admit I did threaten it regularly over the winter with a "shovel pruning". Now I'm talking sweetly to it daily and praising its every effort. ;>

It's pretty, It did good effort!

It's official, I'm totally senile. I saw this and thought, "I have NO recollection of planting that."

At least I remember planting this, although I don't know it's name. Louisiana iris "What's its Name."

Baptisia "Carolina Moonlight." I remembered one!!!!

Borderj... Would love to find one like that that I have NO recollection of planting anytime!! LOL!

ACK!! B&Jack, you stop that! Another Clematis!!! ACK!!
I have what I think is a baptista that I got on the sale table for half off- it is growing like mad but no flowers yet.
Hope it is white. No, blue. No, purple. Oh crud, just bloom!

LOL pyromomma! I don't even know what a baptista is, But the one you have pictured here sure does look healthy!

Beautiful "what's his name". :) Nice surprise clematis, too!

Salvia "Hot Lips" just getting started.
Deb

How about what's NOT blooming for me this April? Can you all commiserate with me for a few? :((

My first clematis coming up had 4 large buds on it, one starting to open, when my SIL accidentally mowed it down the other day.

My Black Lace Elderberry was putting on superb growth & developing it's lovely flower heads when my best friend backed her RV into it & tore half the bush off. I'm trying to sprout the broken ones.

My canna bed is being destroyed by my 9 mo old Lab puppy & my best friend's Labradoodle, so they're not coming up and/or are getting broken as fast as they do.

3 new Boysenberry bush plants have been pulled up & disposed of by my puppy.

2 Mimosa trees have also been destroyed by her.

I'm about to quit for the year, and it's hardly even started. Boohooooo :((

Deb-

I'm so sorry to hear that. Puppies are a challenge. I'm fortunate to have a large, separate dog yard.

The squirrels have been doing a number on my yard this year. There seems to be a population explosion of their numbers! They must have formed a pact with the fire ants- I seem to have way too many of those as well.

I'm waiting for the return attack of the webworms. Uggh. One of their favorites to munch on is anything in the pea family, which includes all my baptisia. I probably have 15 plants- it was a losing battle last year.

I am sorry but I am laughing here. Sad as it is for the garden, it is hysterical to picture those two puppies just plowing through the garden. (the SIL and the friend are another story.)

Jenny, we too are seeing more fire ants this year.

SCNewbie: You have my profound sympathy. I've been lucky so far in that I have only had two such mishaps. First, DH decided to clean the gutters just after I had put my rooted Persian Shield cuttings in and he dumped pounds of pine straw onto them and forgot to clear it away. Lost a few.

Then, I was trying to cut a cursed wild privet out of my rose bush that has a clematis winding through it. In the process, I myself, cut right through a rose cane AND a clematis stem - and both were in full bloom!

The good news for us both is that it's a loooong growing season. Plenty of time for recovery! :)

B&J: We seem to have a larger than normal squirrel population in our gardent his year, too. Digging in flower pots, knocking down bird feeders on a daily basis.

Deb

My sister one time had a bored (and "here comes trouble") doberman that she adopted. Nice dog, but when she planted $250 worth of azaleas in her newly landscaped backyard and went away for a weekend her dogsitter gave her bad news when she returned. Every one of the azaleas was dug u[p, chewed up and many were eaten! "He was poopin' roots for a week"according to sis. That dog was gone to a nice farm where he had other doggies to play with and was much happier and not bored!

Oh! My Baptisia is Yellow!! Yay!!
Lorie in Colatown

Sometimes it's simply a matter of what fertilizer have been used on the plants. I know my dogs love anything organic. CJ's favorite favorite thing to roll in is otter poop so fish anything can't be used in my back yard. My mom used bone meal in her flower bed and again CJ had a field day digging in that when no one was looking. Scooter loves to dig up Milorganite, I can't use that where he can get to it. LOL> I fear what would happen if I used manure???

I have to closely supervise my husband, too, whenever he gets the urge to use the trimmer. Once he gets going he gets a little wild and now he's banned from operating that piece of equipment unless I can be there. "You wanted THAT? It looked like a big weed."

Thank you all for sharing my misery with me. lolol Honestly, I've been near tears sometimes, but what are ya gonna do?

I forgot to mention that not only did my SIL mow down that one clematis, she also took out a few other smaller ones, and a jasmine. Ah well, it's early, so they got early pruning this year, huh? Hopefully they'll come back.

My puppy, on the other hand..... I know she'll grow out of it, but in the meantime I'm building fences & blockades. lol

Borders - it's the dog yard where I do most of my growing - it wasn't a prob until I got the lab puppy. I enclosed about 4000 - 5000 sq ft. for them on one side of the house, but we've ended up spending most of our time there. In fact, I'm growing my strawbale veggie garden in there, too, to keep the deer & other critters away from it. (I've decided I'm putting chicken wire up to partition that section from the dogs) The other side of the yard is for a small orchard, where the trees are doing well, thank god.

Thank you all again. :))

Core: That's so true about the fertilizers. My terriers love fish emulsion. :)