Pride of Barbados

Every spring my local store The Arbor Gate has free seminars on saturday mornings.

I took one look at this tree and had to have it. I have never seen blooms so colorful. I hope it comes back this year as good as this. It hasn't grown much but it is still alive.

Noisy Bird

Ok it's not the best picture I ever took but I don't think there is any doubt about what it was making such a racket as I was trying to relax late in the day.

Spider Lily

When I posted a picture of this earlier in the year it was listed as an unknown Lily. Tanya liked it a lot and wondered what it was so I did some research and it looks like a Spider Lily.
No this isn't current. It won't look like this for 5 or 6 months.
All pictures from here on are old ones until the new blooms start in a month or three.

Late Bloomers - Graham Thomas

Thanks to the great weather we have been having I was able to take this picture of the Graham Thomas in my front yard today.
Graham Thomas is a large fragrant bush out of the David Austin rose collection.
When I say large I mean it since this bloom was at eye level and I am 6'3".

Late Bloomers - Antoine Rivoire

I know you were all thinking I was through posting roses this year but I saved this one even though this picture is about a week and half old. I am pretty proud of this rose since it was one of the few we planted this spring that really worked out well.
The bush grew pretty fast and seems to bloom constantly.

Late Bloomers- Climbing Pinkie

I am starting to run out of things that are still blooming. I took this last week and it does not look at good today.
It is a vigorous climber that is fragrant and a repeat bloomer.

Late Bloomers - Felicia

This is without a doubt the most fragrant rose in the garden. Just taking this picture today I could smell it.
It is a Hybrid Musk and has that musky old rose scent.

Late Bloomers - Lace Cascade

Kat commented below that the latest chill had gotten to almost all of her blooms so I checked outside and was surprised that I still had 5 roses with blooms on them. This one we have had for a while. It is a climber and fragrant.

Variegated Hydrangea

Nothing really blooming right now so I had to check the archives.
I don't really have one good picture of this one however.
This is what is looks like in bloom but one of the things about it is that you know when it wants water and this picture looks like one of those days.

Banana Fig

I went through all our fruit trees in my comment to Anna on the Japanese Maple but I entirely forgot about our newest fruit the the Banana Fig.
This is what it looked like shortly after we planted it just this last April

Now here is what is looked like in September. It you look close you will see that it is covered with figs. They don't grow like normal fruit but come right out of the trucks.
It is looks horrible now having lost all its leaves in the cold weather and the people who sold it to us say we need to cut it down 50% when it goes dormant. I hate doing that but it is such a fast grower I will just have to grit my teeth.

Posted by Starhawk at 09:41 PM | Gratuitous Garden Pic | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Japanese Maple

This is without a doubt the most expensive tree we have ever bought.
I won't say how much but I will say that it cost more than the next two most expensive trees put together.
It is small and slow growing which are things I don't like but the wife wanted it and it was her money.

Baby's Blanket

This is what Jackson and Perkins calls a ground cover rose.
We picked up a bunch a few years ago during a sale they had and they have proved their worth.
They are own root roses and even though they are called ground covers they are actually about 3 foot high. they don't have much of a fragrance but make up for that by having lots of blooms all year long as this picture, which is only a few days old shows.

Climbing Pinkie

Talking about things that are still blooming I noticed that this climber in the back had some blooms on it (eat your heart out Ted).

This is growing on the side of the playhouse I got for my daugther when we moved down here that she hardly ever uses anymore. She was the one who picked it.

This picture does not really do it justice and I didn't have a full shot so I went back through my picture directory and realized I had taken something over 800 pictures of various things since the spring.
It is amazing what you can get done while you are unemployed and here I thought I had nothing to show for the last eight months.

It is also amazing how fast things grow. This is what the Pinkie looked like back in March.

In September it looked like this.

I almost forgot. Here is what it looked like in full bloom back in April. It blooms all through the summer but the spring bloom is the best.

Arizona

I think I may have posted this rose already but I was so surprised to see this bloom yesterday (yes I said yesterday) that I had to snap this picture. It is a little late in the year for this to bloom but it has really come back well from the pruning we gave it in Feb.
The Arizona is a Grandiflora rose which means among other things that it is tall.
This bloom was about six feet off the ground which is probably why the deer didn't get to it.

Mr. Lincoln

This is another one of the new roses. Actually it is a replacement for a Mr. Lincoln I used to have that died. These are great roses, very fragrant and winners of lots of awards.
They are one of the older Hybrid Teas.

Air Potato

I have no idea where this comes from. My wife thinks that our local nursery handed her some seeds once, she planted them and forgot about them.

Then suddenly this thing starts growing on oneof our trees and she couldn't figure out what it was. It kept growing and now as you can see it is quite large.

Perfume Delight

The label of this rose says Perfume Delight but when I look online it doesn't look anything like what I see. Perfume Delight is a pink rose in all the pictures I see.
This one looks more like a Fragrant Dream or maybe a Vanilla Perfume.
I hate when they mislabel roses even if they are only selling them for $5 a piece.
It is very fragrant though.

Pink Peace

This is one of my new roses bought for only five bucks the other day.

It is a Hybrid Tea derived from the famous Peace rose.
It is large flowered (obviously) and has a strong fragrance.

Fall Roses

I thought I was finally finished with that last purchase of cheap roses but some more came in and what can I say but this is what my front yard now looks like.
The problem with these roses is that I think some of them are mis-labeled. Two are supposed to be climbing Coral Dawn but they don't look at all alike. That gives me four climbers to try and find a spot for.
Oh well I guess there are worse things in the world.
Close ups to come in the next few days.

Climbing Don Juan ??

The wife called me today from WalMart.
"They have great roses here and they are only five dollars"
"But honey you know this is the worst time of year to plant roses"
"Yes but they are only five dollars"
"That is why they are only five dollars"

To make a long story short here is a picture on my new climbing Don Juan, one of five new roses I bought today, none of which will probably make it to spring.

Update: Looking at this closely and comparing it to other pictures on the web I have decided that this is probably not a Don Juan. Another mislabled rose but the other one labeled Don Juan looks like the real thing.

Confederate Rose Hibiscus

We had two of these that we planted last year and they were both doing quite well until the deer got to one.
We hope it will come back in the spring but there is no telling.
For more information on this plant go here.

Australian Tree Fern

This is one of two that the wife bought a couple of years ago. It dies out in the cold weather and comes back strong in the spring.
They started out about a foot tall and this one is now about 4 by 5.

It is supposed to get very big eventually.

She bought four more of these this year.

Confetti Lantana

One of the things I am able to take credit for in the garden was the intorduction of Lantana.
At first I got some gold lantana after watching a now defunct show on Saturday mornings on the Home and Garden Network.
More on gold tomorrow.

We have several types now this one having multi color flowers. Unlike the gold this one grow to bush size of 5 feet high by four feet across.

The plant, all of them, have an unpleasant aroma. On the positive side the deer hate them and leave them alone. They provide great color all through the summer till the first cold weather when they die off. They come back all by themselves in the spring and sometimes in places where you didn't plant them.
This bush is a good 50 feet from the ones we planted.

Another thing good about them is buttterflys love them.

High Hopes

This is another of the roses that is climbing on the fence. The way we did this was plant a rose on the outside of every post. Some of them have not made it.
Two did ok for a while then died. I think we have three open posts at the moment but one of them gets so much shade that I doubt we will be able to grow a rose on it.

This is actually the second High Hopes we had. The first was in the main rose garden and was the victim of deer we think. The nice people at Jackson and Perkins replaced it and we decided not to plant it in the same spot.
This one has been hit by deer also but it has managed to get big enough that its existence is no longer in question. It is about five feet high and 6 feet wide.

New Dawn

This is another of the older climbers that we have on the fence that goes around the dog run. I actually though we had lost this one and was surprised last year when I suddenly discovered long canes running along the fence.
This is another repeat bloomer, this picture is only a few days old.

Lace Cascade

This is one of the older roses in the garden. It is a large flower climber except that my blooms are never really that large. It blloms mainly in the spring but this recent shot shows that with enough rain it will still show off once the summer heat eases up.

Clematis

My wife has been trying to grow these for years without much luck except for this one that bloomed last april.
It is easy to see why she wants to grow it based on how good it looks.

Blaze

This is one of the first roses that we bought and of that group one of the few we still have. We have a fenced in area for the dogs to run in. We decided to plant a climbing rose by each post inside the fence.
Bad idea.
The dogs managed to dig up and destroy every last one of those.
Plan B was to plant roses by every post outside the fence and this is one of three that I bought. It was very late in the season when I bought these and they were the only climbers that Jackson and Perkins had left. They don't really have much of a scent but they are nice to look at and are repeat bloomers.
We still have all three of them though they have neve been super vigorous they still bloom every year.

Pampus Grass

This was already here when we moved in.
It is kind of hard to get the scale from the picture but it is easily ten feet high and maybe ten feet in diameter.
I planted some babies in an area by the road that gets flooded in rains then gets dry as a bone. They are doing well but are only 4 or 5 feet high right now.
It is an extra hardy, hard to kill and my wife hates it, hates all of them actually.
We asked a local nursery worker what the best way to trim it was because it can't be cut easily with anything, believe me I tried. She told us that we should just burn it down in the fall and it would come back in the spring.

Chocolate Plant

I knew some of you wondered when I told you a few weeks ago that we had bought a plant with brown leaves but here it is and it actually is called a Chocolate plant.

Mermaid

All of a sudden lots of stuff in the garden is blooming again.
I guess it is a combination of cooler temperatures and rain.
I went out today and took enough pictures for the next few days.
This is a picture of a rose we have had a long time. The Mermaid is a climbing rose and this one is huge. It is planted along a fence and the canes go out in each direction for over twelve feet. It is mainly a spring bloomer but does get a few blooms at this time of year. I will see if I can find some of the spring pictures so you can get an idea on another day.
In addition to being a very tough rose it has very big and sharp thorns so my wife has nicknamed it Dangerfield.
It's only problem is that it is somewhat prone to blackspot.

Persian Shield

I am not sure what this is, except for the name but my wife bought it earlier this year and it is nice and colorful in the garden.

It loves shade which we have a lot of.

It is a tropical so it might not make it through the winter.

John F Kennedy

This is a John F Kennedy that we picked up a few years ago from Jackson and Perkins in the off season.
Like a lot of late season roses plantings it has not done well, which is why they sell them at half price.
It is a Hybrid Tea with a strong fruity fragrance.
It seems to get blackspot pretty easily but most of the roses in the Houston area have that problem.
It is pretty when it blooms but we didn't get many blooms and it has never gotten to the height it should be at.

Texas Star Hibiscus

This is nice for a lot of reasons.
One we just planted it this summer.
Two we had no idea it would bloom this year.
We also had no idea it would look as nice as it does. It only lasts for a day or two but there are several more blooms waiting to take its place.

Blooming Peach

This is the previously mentioned Blooming Peach from this spring when it was both alive and in full bloom.
I don't remember when we got it but it was several years old.
Click on it for the full image.

Felicia

I was amazed today to go out and find two of my roses, well three actually but two are the same, sporting blooms.
This one we picked up a few years ago at the Antique Rose Emporium.
The Felicia is a Hybrid Musk. It is a good size scrub rose and is probably the most fragrant rose in the entire garden. The scent is old rose.

Day Lily

I forgot till I was looking at some old pictures that we had a few of these in the back. The blooms are long gone as are the blooms on almost everything else in the garden but they were pretty nice. I am not sure how many of these are in the back, maybe 6 or so.

Little buddy

Usually I can't get any decent pictures of these little guys but for some reason they are all around this year and this one has taken a liking to my lawn chairs.

Unknown Lily

I decided to try posting pictures from my garden again. I am still not sure how this is going to work in MT but let's give it a shot.
I wish I could take credit for this but it just popped up one spring after we had moved in. Actually there are two of them of the same kind but the other is about 100 feet away for some reason.



Update: That didn't quite work out right so I resized the display. It you click on it though you will see the full size. Pretty neat the way MT does this.

Magic Blanket

This is a picture of a ground cover rose named Magic Blanket. It is part of Jackson and Perkins
Garden Ease collection which will also be featured tomorrow if I get this picture to post. I believe these are the only own root roses that J&P sells and we have done well with them. This is the first year that the magic Blanket has bloomed for us. As you can see the rose is on the ground and this is how it is supposed to grow. It is very good for covering slopes and banks of which we have neither so currently it is trying to cover our driveway.


Update: Well that doesn't seem to have worked. I guess that there is something at geocities that prevents this from doing what I want, back to the drawing board.

Sir Thomas Lipton

Gratuitous Garden Pic
For some reason the FTP started working again today. I have only been doing software for 20 years so I have no idea what is going on but either I fixed something or they did.
Anyhow here is a picture of the king of my garden Sir Thomas Lipton.
The Lipton is a Rugosa which are known for being very hardy. After our success with this one I bought 4 or 5 more different Rugosas the next year, all of which died. This one however is eight feet high by eight feet wide. It is a repeat bloomer and is fragrant.
We took some cuttings the year before last and had good results but all the babies save one were deer food. If we ever get a greenhouse we will probably take more since we obviously have lots of raw material to work from.
On second thought it might be ten feet wide. Somewhere in there is a bird's nest too.

Ballerina

Gratuitous Garden Pic
This is a close up of the Ballerina we picked up a few years ago on a trip to the Antique Rose Emporium in Brenham. It is a Hybrid Musk that is supposed to get 5 to 6 feet in height. Ours is only about 4 1/2 but it has been munched on by the deer once or twice. It is a repeat bloomer but does not have any scent.

Prairie Sunrise

Gratuitous Garden Pic
In the gardening biz a lot of times it is easy come easy go. I took this picture yesterday of this Prairie Sunrise rose which we planted just last week. I was very surprised that it was pink since the earlier picture I had posted from the plant at the nursery was apricot. Two things could be possible, perhaps it changed color as the bloom aged which is not uncommon in roses, or perhaps it was a sport which is a lot less common. A sport is basically a genetic mutation. Almost all roses are propagated from cuttings and therefore should be genetically identical to the plant from which the cutting came. Sometimes it does not turn out that way and if the new rose breeds true in later cuttings you have a sport, a new type of rose, very cool. I will have to wait a while to find out however since something decided to invade the garden and nibble on this one and its neighbor. It looks like it will survive but not by much.

Antoine Rivoire

Gratuitous Garden Pic
Usually roses look a lot better the second or third year after planting. That is not to say that they can't give you nice blooms the first year. As an example take this Antoine Rivoire that we planted just a few months ago. It is an older Hybrid Tea shrub rose dating back to 1895.
It is a repeat bloomer and has a tea scent.