Landscape & Gardening

What’s Blooming Now

This is the only way to make concrete look good. With Four-nerve daisies (Tetraneuris scaposa) mixed in with Dwarf Coreopsis (Coreopsis auricular ‘Nana’) at the base of my Texas Whitebud tree and a backdrop of sundrops, who will notice the concrete?
This is the only way to make concrete look good. With Four-nerve daisies (Tetraneuris scaposa) mixed in with Dwarf Coreopsis (Coreopsis auricular ‘Nana’) at the base of my Texas Whitebud tree and a backdrop of sundrops, who will notice the concrete?

Today is blooming Earth Day, and I have some bodacious beauties to share with you. I took these photos about a week ago thinking the predicted week of rain would destroy their beautiful massing effect. The sun’s back out today, and they have fortunately recovered. Though I’m glad I shot them earlier on a cloudy day, because these particular areas do not photograph well in full sun. Dappled shade would be ideal, but these flowers are either in full sun or full shade. For more photos of the blooming bits of my garden, click the link below.

Landscape & Gardening

Prolific Spring Bloomers

Scabiosa 'Butterfly Blue'. The popular common name for this plant is the Pincushion flower. Even though all my scabiosas are blooming profusely now, I was amazed that they even had some blooms this past winter. In fact, they never did stop blooming.
Scabiosa ‘Butterfly Blue’. The popular common name for this plant is the Pincushion flower. Even though all my scabiosas are blooming profusely now, I was amazed that they even had some blooms this past winter. In fact, they never did stop blooming.

Shot over a two week period, these images are being posted just in time for Earth Day. It’s taken three years of hard work, patience, trial and error, and I have often wondered if it was in the stars for my gardens to become fully realized. Finally, there are results. This spring has rewarded me with loads of foliage and blooms. There are still areas (I call them “death gaps”) where additional and/or new replacements are required, but on the whole it’s reassuring that I haven’t wasted so much time, effort and money. In late June, I’ll photograph the gardens in their entirety, but in the meantime while the plants are filling in, here are photos of individual bloomers.