Oenothera glazioviana 'Tina James' and associates

I grew Oenothera glazioviana ‘Tina James’ from seed last year. Despite being chewed to the ground by something earlier in the year (blame the deer) it’s now blooming. A biennial, or maybe perennial if you don’t let the seeds mature, and the flowers pop open in the evening. Or so I’ve heard. One recent evening, I dragged the spouse up to the kitchen garden where they’re planted. “See, there’s this plant with big yellow flowers and they pop open in the evening. A garden writer named Tina James had parties where the opening of these these flowers was the entertainment.” So we waited. And waited. And waited. You could see they were going to open. The cross-shaped stigma emerged first, sort of sticking its tongue out at us. Then the reddish calyx started to split open, revealing the pale yellow petals. Then one petal began to raise an edge from the cigar roll of petals. Then we got tired of waiting and I peeled back the calyx. The petals did unfold and spread and the spouse agreed that they were nice flowers.

Oenothera glazioviana 'Tina James'

I took these photos early in the morning, which is the only time I’m going to see these flowers unless I plant some closer to the house (or go up to the garden in the evening and peel back calyces). Each flower lasts one night and is wilted and closed by mid-morning.

Next up, we have Impatiens balsamina. Sometimes called balsam, but that name is applied to so many plants that I prefer the Latin name. I grew these many years ago and decided to give them a try again. I’m glad I did. I don’t remember them being this floriferous before. Large semi-double flowers in various colors that are familiar from the more-common Impatiens walleriana. My only complaint is that seeds are only available in mixed colors and so you have to be prepared for some clashing shades of pink, red, and orange. Well, maybe I have another complaint, and that’s that the flowers are not at all self-cleaning. It takes a long time for them to drop off after they’re finished, and until they do they’re sort of brown and saggy. But the plants are nice and sturdy and they have quite a few flowers in bloom at once, giving a bright shot of color. Oh, and Thomas Jefferson grew them at Monticello and that’s a very big deal in central Virginia.

Impatiens balsamina

Sweet peas. I didn’t think I could grow them, but look. This is another thing that I grew many years ago. The first time I tried they bloomed nicely and every time I tried after that was a failure. I don’t remember doing anything in particular that first time, but this time I started seeds (Spencer Ripple Mix) during the winter in cell packs in the cold frame and then planted them out very early in the spring. It seems to have worked, but the plants looked as if they were about to dry up and die just before putting out this new growth and flowering. How long will they keep going? I have no idea.

Sweet Peas (Lathyrus odoratus)

Here’s a strange one. I grew these so-called Korean Hybrids Chrysanthemums from seed last year, and they bloomed last fall. I wasn’t too impressed with most of the flowers in the mix, but I didn’t dig them up either. Now some of them are blooming in June. Strange. These hybrids must have some summer-blooming ancestors. I’m still not impressed with the flowers.

Chrysanthemum, Korean Hybrids

Well, I’ve gone on long enough about these new plants and you need time to visit all the other blogs in bloom on this GBBD, so I’ll wrap up with the list of other plants in bloom at Tangled Branches South.

• Red-hot Poker (Kniphofia)
• Pink-flowered Oregano
• Coreopsis verticillata ‘Zagreb’
• Eryngium planun ‘Blue Glitter’
• Lavender ‘Munstead’
• Lavender ‘Grosso’
• Thyme, broad-leaved English
• Germander
• Nepeta transcaucasica ‘Blue Infinity’
• Verbena hastata ‘Pink Spires’
• Verbena bonariensis
• Achillea ‘Summer Berries’
• Monarda menthifolia
• some repeat bloom on various dianthuses
• Coral honeysuckle
• Phlox maculata ‘Miss Lingard’
• Platycodon (Balloon Flower)
• Various violas
• Cuphea llavea (Bat-faced cuphea)
• Nicotiana alata ‘Sensationally Fragrant Mix’
• Asclepias incarnata (Swamp Milkweed)

Louisiana Iris 'Black Gamecock'

It took several years, but the Louisiana Iris is finally in bloom. I think it would have bloomed last year, except for a little mishap with the spouse and the lawn mower. It was worth the wait. Big, velvety, dark purple flowers.

Louisiana Iris 'Black Gamecock'

They’re maybe a little darker than the photos here show, but nowhere near as dark as some catalog photos (gee, do you think they enhance them at all?).

I haven’t been able to find out much about the origins of this iris, other than that it was registered in 1978 by Frank Chowning, who bred irises with increased hardiness in mind. Interestingly, he was a pal of Caroline Dormon, who was a pal of Elizabeth Lawrence.

We have a poorly drained area which is wet all winter, but does dry out during the summer. I planted ‘Black Gamecock’ there next to a tiny Atlantic White Cedar tree (Chamaecyparis thyoides) which is growing like  a weed, so I’ll soon have to move the iris (I’m not moving the tree). Other purchased companions are Acorus gramineus ‘Ogon’ and Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata, started from seed). I’ve also been digging up some wild plants from the surrounding area and adding them to the same bed – Common Rush (Juncus effusus) and Maryland Meadow Beauty (Rhexia mariana). I started this bed with a very different idea in mind, but now I’m planning to keep it local by adding wild plants to create a sort of cultivated wild garden. The Louisiana Iris gets to stay, however.

It’s the 15th of the month again and time for garden bloggers to show off what’s blooming in their gardens via Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, a internet event created and hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Here at Tangled Branches South, we have dianthuses. Lots of dianthuses.

Dianthus 'Rainbow Loveliness'

I’ve been plugging Dianthus ‘Rainbow Loveliness’ for about as long as I’ve been growing it (since 2007). The fringy feathery flowers are spectacular grouped together, as you can see above, and also rewardingly complex up close.

Dianthus 'Rainbow Loveliness'

I wrote a longish post about ‘Rainbow Loveliness’ last year, so I won’t repeat myself. But in that post, I mentioned that one of the parents of ‘Rainbow Loveliness’ is a class of dianthus known as Allwood Pinks. When I saw a blend of Allwood Pinks called ‘Fragrant Village Pinks’ in the Chiltern Seeds catalog I had to buy some. I sowed the seed last spring and transplanted several of the plants to the kitchen garden. A few bloomed late last year, and greatly resembled ‘Rainbow Loveliness’. Hmm, didn’t expect that. Now most of the rest of them are in bloom. While I’d agree that they’re fragrant, I’m not so sure about any of them being Allwood Pinks. I have a range of colors, flower forms, and plant habits. Some of them are very nice.

Dianthus x allwoodii 'Fragrant Village Pinks'? These particular flowers have a wonderful spicy vanilla-y scent that reminds me of D. gratianopolitanus 'Bath's Pink'.

Some of the flowers are what I would call “curiosities”.

Dianthus x allwoodii 'Fragrant Village Pinks' ?

And a couple of the flowers even look like the photo on Chiltern’s website.

Dianthus x allwoodii 'Fragrant Village Pinks'

So I don’t know exactly what I’ve grown, but I like them all, even the curiosities.

Cottage-y flowers are a favorite of mine, so I couldn’t resist the catalog description of the single-flowered Sweet Williams:

No old English cottage garden could possibly be complete without its share of Sweet Williams, beautiful in the border and perhaps one of the most attractive cut flowers. Easy to grow; once established and left to themselves, they will take over your garden! We also offer lovely single-flowered Sweet Williams in separate colours.

The original, the quintessential, Sweet William, if you have the others, your garden must still have some of these.

Dianthus barbatus, Single-flowered Mix

I wouldn’t mind if they did take over my garden. They’re beautiful, they’re fragrant and each flower cluster sits atop a marvelously long straight stem, perfect for cutting. If you’ve only seen the hybrid Sweet Williams that garden centers sell in packs, these are a very different thing. They’re about 18 -24 inches tall (those the deer chewed off over the winter are shorter) and have a very full mounded habit.

Dianthus barbatus, Single-flowered Mix

That’s it for the dianthuses. I’m having so much fun with them; you may see more species and varieties here next year.

Another flower I’d like to point out is on a plant not usually grown for flowers. This is a culinary sage, Salvia officinalis ‘Extrakta’.

Sage 'Extrakta'

I’ve grown the plain species before, but I think the flowers on ‘Extrakta’ are nicer – more of them and a brighter blue than the plain species. And a side benefit – the Sweet Williams that were snuggled up next to the sage were not eaten by deer.

So, what else is in bloom? Here’s the list.

• Provencal Thyme
• Lemon Mist Thyme
• Chives
• Rosemary ‘Herb Cottage’
• Violas sown from seed saved from ‘Historic Florist Mix’
• Viola ‘Nature Mulberry Shades’ and ‘Nature Yellow and Red’
• Cuphea llavea (Bat-faced cuphea)
• Lonicera sempervirens (Coral Honeysuckle)
• Salvia x sylvestris ‘May Night’
• Salvia lyrata
• Galium verum
• Vegetables: Peas and Tomatoes!

And really, there’s not all that much in bloom at Tangled Branches South. We continue to focus on the kitchen garden but I’d be unhappy without flowers, so I add them as time and space permit. You’d think mid-April would be mid-Daffodil-Season, but mine are just about finished. Still blooming are ‘Dottie’s Dream’, ‘Salome’, some of the Rinus Rim Mixture.

Narcissus 'Dottie's Dream'

Narcissus 'Salome'

The tulips are just about at peak bloom. I don’t have any of the big ones, they’d be a bit later than these. Currently blooming are T. clusiana ‘Tinka’, T. clusiana ‘Cynthia’, Lily-flowered tulip ‘Mona Lisa’, and Lily-flowered tulip ‘Ballerina’.

Tulipa clusiana 'Tinka'

Tulip 'Ballerina'

Continuing on with some dramatic colors (Ballerina is a very attention-grabbing orange), we have a red pulsatilla. Now I may be a bit delusional about this – maybe it’s really more of a wine-red or reddish-purple – but it was sold to me as red and so that’s what I’m calling it. You can see that the fresher flowers are more red and the older, more purple.

Pulsatilla vulgaris

I was captivated by the colors of these pansies/violas a few weeks at Strange’s Garden Center in Richmond, VA. They’re ‘Nature Mulberry Shades‘, and the flowers range from purple to purple-orange to browninsh-orange. (Note to photographers – check your camera settings before starting to shoot. I left the camera set to ISO1600 and that caused these photos to be grainy. I plan to post more pictures of these violas to better show the range of colors, and I will check the camera settings first.)

Viola 'Nature Mulberry Shades'

We have various violas popping up everywhere, including the gravel driveway, but this one happens to be in the pea gravel around the porch. It’s a descendant of ‘Bowles’ Black’.

Viola (offspring of 'Bowle's Black')

I once planned to have a pool of early-flowering blue bulbs around a pair of trees in the crook of our driveway, but one of the trees died in a drought. The bulbs, however, are very happy with the dead tree roots and this Ipheion ‘Rolf Fiedler’ has filled in to an almost solid mat of flowers, now a little past their prime.

Ipheion 'Rolf Fiedler'

And lastly, ending this post the way it began, with subtle color and beautiful form.

Japanese Maple 'Omure Yama'

Is it cheating if I buy plants in bloom and put them in the garden two days before Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day? I kind of feel like it is, but let me explain. A couple weeks ago, I drove down to Pine Knot Farms annual open house to see and buy some choice hellebores in bloom. I came home with four plants, only three of them hellebores, but didn’t feel like the weather was settled enough to set them out yet. Last Saturday was a gloriously warm day (72F) and it just seemed like the right time to plant. Into the garden they went.

Helleborus x hybridus 'WD Elegance White'

Usually, I prefer single flowers to double, but for some reason the double hellebores appeal to me. This is ‘Winter Dreams Elegance White’, one of a series. I love the dark hellebores, but they just don’t show up very well in the woodland garden, so I made sure to choose a light color. One of my gripes about hellebores is the nodding flowers. This is how it really looks in the garden.

Helleborus x hybridus 'WD Elegance White'

Then, hoping for even earlier flowers, I bought a Christmas Rose – Helleborus niger. It’s supposed to be Wilder strain, but when the flower bud opened I could see that it isn’t.

Helleborus niger (not 'Wilder Strain')

I also bought Cyclamen coum (from one of the other vendors they invited?). I’ve been thinking about adding that to the garden for a while, but this magenta flower sold me.

Cyclamen coum

The other hellebore I bought isn’t blooming, but for the record, it’s H. foetidus ‘Red Silver’.

OK, on to the established plants. Hmm, all bulbs.

Narcissus 'Tete-a-Tete'

Crocus vernus 'Twilight'. This is how they look in the morning before the flowers open.

Scilla siberica 'Spring Beauty'. They really do have larger flowers than the plain species.

Crocus tommasinianus 'Ruby Giant' (Really rather small)

Just beginning:

• Chionodoxa sardensis

Just finishing:

• Narcissus ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’
• Galanthus nivalis

Come and gone between Bloom Days:

• Iris reticulata ‘Gordon’
• Crocus sieberii ‘Tricolor’

So there’s another Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. Off to see what else is in bloom around the world…

Crocus sieberi 'Tricolor'

…to the very tall.

Red Maple

Truly. The crocus is just a few inches high and the maple flowers are 30 to 40 feet above my head.

It’s all about reproduction.

Tuesday, a pair of Phoebes were in the backyard. Uh oh, it’s time to protect the porch lights already.

Wednesday, a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks were mating in the nearby trees (repeatedly).

Spring is springing here at Tangled Branches South.

In bloom on February 28: Narcissus 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation', Crocus sieberi 'Tricolor', Iris reticulata 'Gordon'

Curious as to whether bouquet implies flowers or whether a bunch of greenbrier and ground pine qualifies as a bouquet, I typed bouquet into my French to English translator. Ya know what the English word for bouquet is?

Bouquet.

I just had an “aha” moment looking at these flowers. They’re all blooming at the same time. They look nice together. So wouldn’t they look as nice planted together as they do sharing vase space? Must remember this next fall when it’s bulb planting time. Must remember this next fall when it’s bulb planting time. Must remember this next fall when it’s bulb planting time. Must remember this next fall when it’s bulb planting time.

Can it be that we’ve been doing this for four full years now? Yes, it can, and this post begins the fifth year of the monthly internet tally of flowers in bloom – Carol’s Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, inspired by Elizabeth Lawrence.

Well, Elizabeth Lawrence gardened in North Carolina where it’s just a little bit warmer most winters than it is here. This winter is not “most winters”. It’s been consistently cold and mostly dry. But yesterday felt like spring, with sunny warm breezes (which turned into a gale later in the afternoon), and so I dutifully went out and looked for flowers, not really expecting to find them. Oh, I knew about these snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii), because I can see them from my patio door and because they’ve been blooming since January 19th.

The later snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis, will be blooming soon, but not just yet. The crocuses are very tiny green sprouts, but they don’t take long to go from that stage to flowers. Usually, by this time of year there’s a scilla or two, but they’re sleeping late this year. I didn’t disturb the hellebores either, but I’m sure there are flower buds under the leaf litter. So that’s it for this GBBD, a few lonely white flowers and lots of buds.

Some previous February Bloom Days were more flowery:

2007

2008

2009

And some not:

2010

(note: internal links from those old posts won’t work and neither will the comments)

In this hot weather bold colors seem very appropriate, and some of the most-thriving plants are some of the boldest. I knew I wasn’t going to get a photo of everything in bloom today so I picked a few things to decorate the dinner table. In the photo (roughly top-to-bottom) are Pepper ‘Bellingrath Purple’, Celosia’ Sylphid’, Zinnia ‘Carousel Mix’, Coleus ‘Pineapple Wizard’, Cosmos ‘Memories of Mona’, Salpiglossis ‘Kew Blue’ and Coleus ‘Palisandra’.

A selection for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Here’s a more-or-less complete list of plants blooming today at Tangled Branches South, in the order in which I happened to think of them:

• Cuphea llavea (Bat-faced cuphea)
• Cuphea ignea
• Cuphea miniata ‘Summer Medley’ (self-sown)
• undetermined Cuphea (self-sown)
• Cosmos ‘Memories of Mona’
• Millet ‘Jester’
• Zinnia ‘Carousel Mix’
• Zinnia ‘Crystal White’?
• Angelonia
• Coleus ‘Pineapple Wizard’
• Coleus ‘Palisandra’ and others (self-sown)
• Salvia ‘Vista Purple’
• Lantana ‘Dallas Red’
• Verbena bonariensis
• Lonicera sempervirens (Coral honeysuckle)
• Celosia ‘Cramer’s Amazon’ (self-sown)
• Celosia ‘Sylphid’ (self-sown)
• Bronze amaranth (self-sown)
• Salpiglossis ‘Kew Blue’
• Petunia ‘Old Fashioned Vining’
• Portulaca, mixed single-flowers
• Dianthus ‘Fragrant Garden Pinks’
• Lavender ‘Munstead’ (rebloom)
• Hosta ‘Royal Standard’?

Zinnia, Coleus, Salpiglossis

I’d like to call special attention to a couple of plants. First, the zinnias. Why it took me so long to learn to love zinnias, I have no idea. They’re absolute butterfly magnets and almost totally drought-proof. Plus they’re cheap and easy from seed and available in many colors and sizes. I seem to remember them from years ago as being mildew-ridden, but these haven’t shown any signs of mildew at all. Second, salpiglossis. I’ve been looking at salpiglossis photos in seed catalogs ever since I started to look at seed catalogs. And I resisted buying the seed because “they don’t like heat and won’t grow in the South”. All the reference books and even the catalogs say so. Eventually desire got the better of all the contrary advice. And now they’re blooming in August in the hottest part of the garden in the hottest summer on record? I’ll admit that I started with three plants and now there’s only one. I did cut it back some after the first flush of bloom, but I did that with the other 2 as well. Still, I wonder how they’d do in a “normal” year and I plan to buy more seed next year.

That’s it for another Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. If you haven’t been there already, head over to Carol’s place and see what else is blooming on the internet today.

6 AM, just beginning to open

Not much change by 6:30

But fully open by 8:15

This was the first daylily I ever planted (over 20 years ago). The variety is ‘Medallion’. The other daylily varieties at Tangled Branches North are unknown to me. I have “the big yellow one”, “the dark red one”, “the one that looks like Stella d’Oro”, and “the one that is probably ‘Siloam Baby Talk’. I have two more whose name I do know (‘Apricot Petticoats’, ‘Squash Tempura’) that I moved to Tangled Branches South this spring. They haven’t bloomed yet.

For completeness, here’s the list of plants in bloom at Tangled Branches North which aren’t duplicated at Tangled Branches South:

• Bottlebrush Buckeye (Aesculus parviflora)
• Shasta daisy
• Asclepias tuberosa
• Santolina (the green leaved one with pale yellow flowers)
• Coreopsis verticillata ‘Moonbeam’
• various groundcover-type Sedums
• Passiflora incarnata

More accurately, Passiflora incarnata was blooming until I pulled out every shoot I could find. Some plants should come with warning labels, and this is the year I finally got fed up with its wandering ways. The shoots are coming up everywhere, some a good 10 feet from where it was originally planted. When I planted it next to our neighbors’ fence, those neighbors were hardly ever outdoors and did basically no outdoor maintenance on the property (not even mowing the lawn). Now we have different neighbors who are the exact opposite – anything that can be mowed, sheared or edged is mowed, sheared or edged always. So I’m sure they’re unhappy at finding tropical-looking vines sprouting everywhere, but on the other hand, those vines are mowed off immediately. On our side of the fence, it’s a different story…