Late Arrivals

Given the name of my blog, it seems entirely appropriate for me to follow up Friday's Bloom Day post with another one featuring stragglers that appeared following last week's deadline and those I simply missed in the course of my earlier survey.

The late arrivals are too pretty not to share, and as summer delivers warmer temperatures, I can't guarantee that they'll be around in mid-July.

By process of elimination, I've concluded that this is Epiphyllum 'King Midas', which I found in my lath house shortly after I'd published my Bloom Day post.  It should be more peach than pink but I suspect it'd already faded by the time I photographed it.

More daylilies have bloomed.  Hemerocallis 'Cordon Rouge' is on the left and H. 'Sammy Russell' is on the right.  The latter came with the garden.

The true lilies have been taking their time about blooming.  I've been watching Lilium 'Orange Planet' from my office window for weeks.  It finally opened its first blooms yesterday morning.

I didn't even notice the Lilium 'Montego Bay' below and behind 'Orange Planet' was blooming until I leaned in to get a closeup of 'Orange Planet'

This is Rosa 'Golden Celebration'.  It's heavy flowers tend to take a nose dive, hiding themselves in its foliage.

There were other flowers I just overlooked.

The small flowers of Oscularia deltoides seem to open all at once when I'm not looking, almost completely covering the plant's foliage.  This plant also managed to swamp the Agave 'Mateo' in a large pot alongside it before trailing down into the street side succulent bed below.

I noticed the silver foliage of this Helichrysum retortum before I noticed its papery flowers

Despite the vivid maroon color of the flowers of Pelargonium sidoides, they're easy to miss due to their small size

Low-growing Pennisetum orientale (aka Chinese fountain grass) is dormant during the winter months and always manages to surprise me when it reappears

I planted this intergeneric hybrid of Stachys and Lamium, called Stachys 'Lilac Falls', in 2016 and subsequently believed it'd died off but 2 good years of rain brought it back.  It only grows a few inches tall but it can spread 2-3 feet wide.

I've spent much of the past week in garden clean-up mode, pulling endless weeds, cutting back dead bulb foliage, deadheading flowers, pruning - you get the drift.  Some plants are committed to world domination so I've also spent a lot of time thinning those out.  None of that was worth photographing but I thought I'd show you an updated view of the area on the south-side of the house I addressed when we removed an overgrown 'Blue Flame' Agave.

This is the view from the dirt path behind the bed.  The Aeonium cuttings are filling out and coloring up nicely and the dark Aeonium arboreum 'Zwartkop' in the background is looking its very best.  I cleared a LOT of weeds around the Dasylirion longissima to the left of 'Zwartkop'.  I think that tiny Agave ovatifolia in the middle of the bed may have grown a smidgen larger..  There were some California poppies in the bare area but most of those have already died back.  I can still walk into the bed but I'm not sure how long that will last.

Salvia clevelandii 'Winnifred Gilman' is in full bloom, filling much of the previously open space

The Acanthus mollis I've tried to remove several times is blooming in the middle of a Vitex trifolia.  Note the 2-headed Acanthus flower stalk - that's the first time I've seen that.

Metrosideros collina 'Springfire' is done blooming for the season but it's gaining girth rapidly, which may become an issue

As temperatures continue to climb, further garden cleanup activities are likely to be confined to the early morning hours.  The insect population appears to have already upped its game as I'm now covered in bites from something or another.  But the birds and the lizards are keeping me company while I work.

The western fence lizards have come out in droves

I found ravens having a conference in my cutting garden yesterday morning.  Most immediately flew away but these 2 continued their conversation from a distance atop a peppermint willow.

All material © 2012-2024 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party