
Fall Camellia white hybrid
We are still in an extended Fall season that has been remarkably temperate. The weatherman says we could have frost any day now, but meanwhile we (and the plants) have been enjoying the mild weather. The prettiest flowers for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day are the Fall Camellias. Not only do they have the wonderful evergreen leaves, but the flowers are lovely and pickable for further reflection in the house.

Fall Camellia red
This particular camellia is particularly rewarding because I cut it way back and was ready to remove it after a hard freeze when I noticed a little green shoot coming out. It’s now almost to the size it was originally and is covered with buds.
A bit more surprising is to see a flower on one of the Spring camellias.

Camellia japonica pink
This will get blasted when that frost comes along.
As you go about the yard it’s hard not to notice the wonderful color of the Japanese maples this year.

Japanese Maple in color

Dwarf Japanese Maple in fall color
And the green patterns on the cyclamen are also very striking.

Cyclamen hederifolium
In the front yard the yellow corydalis has continued its unabated flowering.

Corydalis lutea
Back in the vegetable garden the annuals are still flowering, though running out of steam.

Marigold
Most striking by far are the calendulas.

Calendulas

Calendula
And the greenhouse has offered up a South African native Nerine.

Nerine undulata
As a side note, I tried growing Leonotis this year after seeing it in flower just last year for the first time. I was looking forward to that mane of orange yellow flowers that you can see in the catalogs. Unfortunately it looks as though, even with our long season this year, we may not have enough time to see the flowers before frost.

Leonotis leonuris
So my plan is to see if this South African native will grow back from the roots next spring and maybe get an earlier start. Stay tuned.
Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day October 2020

Colchicum autumnale ‘Pleniflorum’
I’ll lead off this GBBD posting with colchicum which has been spectacular this fall. They are hardy, reliable, and beautiful — the sort of qualities that beg for planting more. So I did…
It’s been all in all a marvelous fall here in Maryland. Mostly bright sunny fall days with just enough rain to keep everything going well. Altogether we are 8 inches ahead of the usual rainfall here. The annuals have continued to bloom and I noticed that the cosmos along the fence line have decided on a fall renewal of their blooms.

Cosmos fall rebirth
And the calendulas in the raised bed are bright and beautiful.

Calendula (Alpha from Johnny’s Seeds)
Under the cherry tree in the back yard a clump of cyclamen hederifolium is putting up flowers before the leaves are showing.

Cyclamen hederifolium
Japanese windflowers are spectacular as usual for this time of year.

Japanese anemone ‘Whirlwind’
And they are joined by various instances of toad lilies (such a strange name for exotically beautiful flowers).

Trycyrtis ‘Sinonome’
The canna lily that returned from last year is soldiering on in a very crowded garden bed.

Canna ‘Lemon Punch’
And month by month the cestrum continues a flowerful statement at the back gate.

Cestrum ‘Orange Peel’
I noticed that the beautyberry bush is covered with its distinctive purple berries right now.

Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)
In the alpine bed by the greenhouse there is a rather striking little saxifrage from Japan.

Saxifraga fortunei ‘Beni Zakura’
In the greenhouse itself the oxalis are dominating the show.

Oxalis hirta ‘Gothenburg’
But there is also a rather special scilla that I brought into the house.

Scilla madeirensis
These are not easy to find, but they seem to be quite reliable bloomers.
While I was out in the vegetable garden I found many more dahlias still in bloom

Decorative Dahlia
and lots of monarch butterflies visiting the many tithonia.

Monarchs in the garden
In addition I found a very distinctive moth that I had never seen before.

Ailanthus Webworm Moth (Atteva aurea)
Of course, it’s important to note that at this time of year, one does not live on flowers alone.

Raspberries yielding fall crop

Raspberries in abundance
We have been bringing in bowl after bowl of raspberries for the last 6 weeks.
And finally to cap it off here is the apple pie that we made for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day…

An Apple Pie from the orchard
Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day September 2020
Dahlias seem to be taking center stage for this Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day. I start each year with the intention of posting up the large dahlias in the garden but at first they seem to be supporting themselves just fine. However, by this point in the season I find that they are mostly lying on the ground with their enormous flowers and it’s hard to prop them up without snapping the stems. So perhaps next year I will get them propped up (but probably not…).
But my favorite dahlia is one stemming from a Welsh hybridizer in the 1920’s. The contrast of the bright red flower with the dark foliage is always noteworthy.

Dahlia ‘Bishop of Llandaff’
Elsewhere we find the roses making a comeback as they always do for a second bloom.
Nearby is a perennial bloomer that was said to be marginal in our area but we find this striking salvia comes back every year and is actually increasing it’s stand.
Next to the salvia is a remarkable perennial that dies down to the ground for the winter in Maryland and then comes back vigorously in the springtime. It’s been flowering all summer long and shows no sign of stopping.
Also in this garden bed are several instances of Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’. Talk about a low maintenance plant — I hardly notice that its there until it starts flowering.
Behind this garden is a very large crepe myrtle which is blooming quite happily at the moment

Crepe Myrtle
Out in the pasture is a butterfly bush that is having a lot winged visitors right now.

Buddleia
One of the really nice sights in the yard at the moment is the Limelight hydrangea framed by a pyracantha.

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’ with Pyracatha ‘Mojave’
I noticed while walking about the yard that the arisaema fruit is almost as showy as a flower.

Arisaema ringens
And as we turn to fall, the greenhouse is already putting out some showy flowers.

Sinninglia sp.

Habranthus magnoi

Nerine masoniorum
and finally the first of the many oxalis that will run through December.

Oxalis bowiei
We feel blessed to have wonderful fall weather in Maryland compared to the horrific fires in the west and torrential rains in the south. Stay safe.
Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day July 2020
There are many things blooming at this time of year, but none more assertively demands the attention of your senses than the large oriental lilies. There are other flowers for Garden Blogger’s Bloom day, but i’m going to focus on the lilies.
First and foremost is Anastasia which is so tall and has so many flowers that it is a major task to keep it upright each year. This year we were late so the flowers are bound together in a way that makes them hard to pick. Nonetheless Beth managed to put some on the fireplace.
The last carryover from some of the species lilies was this very special hybrid from lilium henryi.
But most of the focus is on the orientals right now.
This last one sits next to Lilium ‘Casablanca’ but is clearly not the same. It’s twins are in other parts of the same bed, but in the center not way over to the edge where this one’s 6 foot tall flower is way out of size. Is this ‘Time Out’? If so my other ‘Time Out’ is quite different with the yellow suffused, not in a stripe. I’ll have to buy more lilies to sort out the difference…
Another instance of a lily not being where I put it is this Scheherezade.
It sits across the garden pathway from where the main clump of scheherazade was located. I say was, because this spring the gardener, in a fit of unusual weeding activity broke the stem off the main clump of the Lilium ‘Scheherazade’.
Back in the house again the Stargazer lilies got removed before I could photograph them outside.
Now there are other flowers in the garden. In particular I would point out the Hydrangea ‘Blue Billow’ not merely because it has never bloomed blue for us, but because it really contributes to the monument bed at this time of the year.
There are several spots where the crocosmia are blooming. What a marvelously reliable flower. Kind of like a compact glad that you never have to care for.
The greenhouse has two zephyranthes cultivars that I particularly like.
And there are sunflowers that get collected along with annuals from the vegetable garden.
Finally I should note that we’ve had a bumper crop of garlic, this first 1/3 of which is now drying out in the garage.
Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day August 2019
In the midst of hot days in August it is a reliable pleasure to see butterflies in great abundance throughout the garden. For this Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day posting let me begin with some shots of the butterflies that are everywhere right now in Maryland.
It’s also a good time of year to spot the Hummingbird or Clearwing Moth. They are very distinctive with almost invisible wings as the flit about the flowers.
Here are some of the standard flowers around the yard right now.
And of course the glads are still blooming in the cutting garden.
New for us in the Cestrum that we added this year.
And a little more unusual is the diminutive Anemonopsis with it’s waxy flowers.
We also take advantage of the August flowers in the house as well.
And then from the greenhouse
Lastly let me note a seeding success with these hardy camellia seedlings started from seeds purchased from Camellia Forest.
These should be interesting to grow outside in Maryland.
Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day February 2019
I thought I would start this Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day post with a bright and cheerful Moraea from the greenhouse. This is one of the prettiest bulbs in existence. It flowers for only a short time, so I was glad to catch it just as it opened. It’s also been reclassified as Homeria where it becomes a noxious weed according to the USDA. Since it’s hard to keep growing even in cultivation it’s hard to understand how it earned that distinction.
Nearby is a little scilla from Syria
Like many of the small squills, this one has startling dark purple anthers
Outside the greenhouse the world has a few flowers but mostly it’s all in anticipation of things to come after the ice and snow of the last week.
In particular the snowdrops have been doing their part.
And the Winter Aconite are just beginning to appear.
but most of the rest are playing a waiting game
Pictures of trees and shrubs show why the flowers are not in a big hurry yet.
I think it’s fair to guess that by this time next month we will be covered in flowers.
Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day June 2018
June is a month for spectacular Iris, Clematis overflowing the fences, Roses flowering abundantly and flowers of many kinds reaching fruition. For this Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day, I’ll share some of the things that struck my eye this week.
One of the reasons for growing flowers is to attract the many butterflies that enliven the yard. And what better to grow than the different kinds of Butterfly Weed. The normal Asclepias tuberosa comes without effort in our pasture and feeds the monarchs later in the year. But in the yard we are also growing Swamp Milkweed for different kind of color.
And an extremely heavily flowered cultivar is ‘Hello Yellow’.
Here’s the evidence that Butterfly Weed is a good name.
I remembered last year that two of the Arisaemas were very slow to appear, finally showing up on June 2nd. This year Arisaema candidissimum came on May 31 and Arisaema farghesi poked out of the ground on June 2nd again. Talk about reliable.
Just walking around the yard here are some of the other flowers.
This Clematis is climbing up the huge Black Lace Elderberry.
In the alpine bed there a couple of lovely gentians that we’ve never grown before. Both are the result of seed exchanges. The Gentiana dahurica is a good 18″ high and spreading, probably to big for the alpine bed in the long run.
The Himalayan Gentian has the same delicate fringing that I like on other Gentians.
But it also has multi-colored buds that are lovely even before they’ve opened.
Nearby is the first blooming of a Stachys that came for seed last year.
And up on the porch is a spectacular bulb from Peru that is a variation on the normal Peruvian Daffodil.
I should also note that life is not just flowers at this time of year.
We’ve been bringing in a steady diet of peas, strawberries, and raspberries. And now the blueberries are about to start.
There is one other flower worth sharing though. For many people the Corydalis lutea is described as a weed, but I find it’s a wonderful fern-like spreading ground cover.
What’s growing in your garden?
Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day August 2016
I find myself at the beach for this Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day, but before leaving I snapped a few shots of the flowering activity around our hillside. The gentian pictured above is a vigorous spreader in the Alpine bed that is a reliable harbinger of fall. The feathery insides of the flower make it one of the prettiest flowers I know.
The rest of the yard is dominated by the hardy annuals and sturdy perennials that can make it through a dry Maryland summer. A great example is the state flower, Black-eyed Susans, that dominates our front bed.
In the vegetable garden we often grow Mexican Sunflower (Sithonia) which are very attractive to butterflies.
There a number of plants that deserve special praise for returning one or more times during the summer.
The salvia is not supposed to be hardy in our area, but it has returned reliably for 5 years now.
The two lobelias, red and blue, are winners for an August garden.
Amongst the shrubs, the Hydrangea ‘Limelight makes a long and lovely showing.
From the greenhouse a number of the formosa lilies are in full flower.
And the small Herbertia texensis is putting out it’s complex flowers.
Let me close, because the beach is calling, with a wildlife image from the garden. I found this remarkably lovely caterpillar on a tree peony leaf.