Hi all Spring has sprung and I'm impatient!

I don't have tons of plants but a few things are blooming right now.

Mexican Buckeye Trees

White Cemetary Iris

Purple Iris - It's a different shade of purple every year. It is dusty plum
this time.

Purple Trailing, Vining Lantana - It volunteered a few years ago and is a
monster now. Fine by me.

Drummond's Onion - wild with pink blooms

Bluebonnets

Variegated Vinca

Prairie Verbena- just starting

Rosemary - just a few blooms, nearing the end.

And the pic below. Anybody know what the blue flower is? The larger leaf in the foreground is Agarita. The deer aren't eating it...yet. if they leave it alone I'll look for seed. I'll get a closer pic tomorrow.


I didn't list newly planted things from the nursery.

So what's going on in your yard?

Roses, pear trees, huisache (!), magnolias and redbuds nearly done. Lots of wildflowers: bluebonnets, ragwort, baby blue eyes, milkvetch, spiderwort, and many more.

Here's a better pic of that wildflower. I've been looking through books and the Native American Seed catalog. Not found it yet.

Here's my list:

bluebonnets
spiderworts
Mexican flame vine
amaryllis
poppy
bachelor button
freesia laxa
iris
homestead purple verbena
violets
orlaya gr
hibiscus

We need photos, Betsy! We don't have anything in bloom here.

piksihk said:Here's my list:

bluebonnets
spiderworts
Mexican flame vine
amaryllis
poppy
bachelor button
freesia laxa
iris
homestead purple verbena
violets
orlaya gr
hibiscus

@piksihk

How does the Orlaya do for you? I'm trying to find an easy, long blooming annual seed to use in bare spots throughout. Do you have black gumbo and lots of rain? It looks like one of those things that would do well in many soil types. I'm trying cleome and all different zinnias this year, but I've got one more seed order to put in...

Freesia Laxa just went on my hunting list.

Things are greening up here but not many blooms yet. A few irises have bloomed. The hellebores have been blooming since last fall. The berries on the mahonias are just about ripe enough for the cedar wax wings to swoop down and devour them.

Everything is pretty much on schedule so far. Glad I've used the date/time stamps on my garden pictures so I can keep track and compare. I'm terrible when it comes to keeping a journal.

Everything is late here. That cold snap at the beginning of march did in the Lantanas. They were all putting out leaves before. Now, just at the base.

So Hellebores just got added to my list. What kind of soil do you have, @tx_flower_child ?

Please don't put hellebores on your list. I got them years ago before I knew much about gardening. They are NOT native plants and even tho they're pretty, I think something native would be a better choice.

😰

Acacia farnesiana


Amsonia tabernaemontana


Clematis crispa


Sarracenia. alata


Salvia lyrata


Stachys floridana

Yay, pics! Thank you, @Horntoad.

That Acacia is simply breath taking. I love the woodsy meadow look you've got going. I didn't realize they look so much like a Golden Leadball tree. I see the Acacia is called Huisache and two different botanical names as well, here and there on the net.
I'm confused on that...

All your flowers are lovely. Oh how I long for a woodland garden. Grass is always greener... as they say.

@porkpal Does your Huisache look the same? Or is it a different leaf structure and such?

Here's a Mexican Buckeye bloom. The bees adore it.

I believe our Huisache is the same. The leaves I see in Jay's photo may belong to some other tree, a chittamwood, perhaps. Our Huisache currently have blooms but few leaves.

Here's my list:
Amaryllis
Cecil Houdyshel Crinum
Azalea
Henry Duelberg Salvia
White verbeNa
Various begonias
Narcissus
Blue eyed grass
Various cacti
Queen's tears bromeliad
Violas
Red hummingbird fern
Red Epiphyllum in bud

porkpal said:I believe our Huisache is the same. The leaves I see in Jay's photo may belong to some other tree, a chittamwood, perhaps. Our Huisache currently have blooms but few leaves.

There are no leaves on mine yet. Any leaves visible in the pic are the oak tree behind it.

@needrain I cant find your post of your bromilead. But here's a very mature pot of bromilead bilbergia, Queens Tears. She blooms year round for us.

@ShadyGreenThumb
Thanks Cheryl! Aren't they a monocarpic organism? I thought all Bromeliads died after they bloomed and depended on pups to propagate themselves. I may be wrong about that. I'm trying to figure out the Tillandsia recurvata. It's doing well and the balls it makes seem to consist of many, many individual plants which appear to be attaching to old dead growth to form the ball. Mine bloomed heavily, but I can't tell the individual plants died. At least so far. There are a lot seed heads that have finished dispersing the seeds, but most of them are still green. There are some that are dead, but they may be from the year before. The 'Queen's Tears' only has one pup, so it will be a long time before I get a container full like yours. That's great. How big is that container?

@needrain your big words scare me. Yes they will die after a long bloom cycle. But not before putting out pups which is why that pot remains full all the time. I was going to separate them once but feared cutting off an arm while doing so. The leaves are SHARP! It seems to be happy so I leave it to its own devices. Its about 19-15 years old and gifted to me almost as is in that short 12" pot.

Here is a small pot full of young QueensTears and "teenagers" you can see the size difference.

Mine is just a single fan with one pup. I'd like to see more pups. With the wind here, small plastic pots have a tendency to blow away. I need to be able to give the bromes heavier containers, but I can't tell which ones have rooted. A few have put out pups; more have put out new central growth, but a couple are still just sitting like they were when they got unpacked and potted up. None had any root structure, but I'm guessing those that have growth have at least grown some sort of attachment roots for stability. Getting close to the time when they will go outdoors and they need to be stable somehow before that happens. I just don't have much direct experience with the bromeliad family.