GBBD July 2018

Welcome to the July Garden Blogger Bloom Day at Clay and Limestone. It's hot and humid and while many flowers thrive in these conditions, it's a challenge for others. I am hoping the Phloxes will last a bit longer, but, if they fade away we will have the Rudbeckias to celebrate later this month.

Without further chatter, here are some of the blooming natives in the garden.

Liatris spicata the dense blazing star or prairie gay feather, the blossoms begin opening from the top of the spike downward. Bees and butterfly love it. I plan to add even more, especially the fall blooming Liatris that are also native to middle Tennessee.

Echinacea purpurea 'Ruby Star' with a bee friend.  I love purple Coneflowers and wish I could get a huge stand of them...There's not enough sun and winter drainage is a problem, but, I do keep planting them.

Lonicera sempervirens 'Major Wheeler' has been blooming since early April...The hummers stop by everyday, but first they visit the Monarda!

 Bee balm/Monarda didyma 'Jacob Cline' ...I wish I had a hummer to show you here, but they visit when I am working in the garden and not when I am photographing it!

Cup plant/Silphium perfoliatum is one tall wildflower! This just opened and there were no bees visiting the morning I took this photo! This is a great plant for naturalizing; for a screen or the back of the border.

Phyla lanceolata/Lanceleaf fogfruit, a cutie pie relative of Verbena was the June Wildflower Wednesday star and is still blooming.

Helenium ‘Marti Gras’ — Yellow flowers aging to orange, rich chocolate brown centers, 3 – 4’ tall. Keep the soil moist and spent flowers deadheaded for long bloom. I love Sneezeweed, unfortunately some of the best cultivars never make it to the Nashville nurseries.

Phlox paniculata 'Jeana'. This cultivar was discovered growing along the Harpeth River near Nashville, Tennessee and named after its discoverer, Jeana Prewitt. It's a butterfly magnet and does not mildew!

Coreopsis rosea, a sweet flower that will bloom most of the summer if deadheaded or cut back. I find it's easier to keep it happy in a container than planted in my too dry clay summer soil. The little bees love it.

Phlox paniculata, let's just call it a seedling of a cultivar! Carpenter bees are notorious nectar robbers. That big body makes it hard to fit into many flowers and they will drill or cut into the corolla of a plant to get at the nectar. Not to worry, there are plenty of other visitors to pollinate them.

Chamaecrista fasciculata/Partridge pea, is an annual and a bumble bee magnet. Readily self-seeds in medium to dry soils, growing to 2’ in height. It's the host plant for Cloudless sulfur butterfly caterpillar. I expect to always have it in my garden. One plant in the Susan's bed is now 10! The leaves close up/fold up at dusk.

 Phlox 'Jeana' again...The Swallowtail butterfly love her. The plant that's budding next to 'Jeana' is Rudbeckia subtomentosa 'Henry Eilers'.

Non natives in the garden blooming this month

Hemerocallis 'Autumn Minaret' introduced in 1951 by Stout. It continues to be popular because it blooms late; is extremely tall (up to 66 inches); and, is fragrant. I love all that, but, appreciate the simple flower shape. I hope it reblooms and that the deer don't discover it.

 African Blue Basil is a hybrid of two different basil plants that has inherited a camphor flavor from one of its parents. Although, edible, some say it makes a tasty pesto,  I grow it because it's a bee magnet and flowers all summer.

Happy Bloom Day my dears,  now take the magic carpet ride to May Dreams Gardens where host extraordinaire Carol links to gardens all over this great big beautiful world.

xoxogail

PS If you want to grow beautiful plants that attract pollinators to your garden you must never, ever, ever, ever, ever use pesticides. I really do mean never!

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

GBBD: November 2017

Wishing and hoping can't stop winter's approach, but an old cotton sheet can keep a few annuals blooming!

We've had two frosty evenings and I knew the weather would rebound to the sixties and pollinators would be buzzing around looking for flowers. So, I covered my two favorites must have fall blooming supportive players, African Blue Basil and Salvia 'Mystic Spires'.

As you can see they survived the light frost and are blooming for all the late fall visitors.

Also, blooming today is Willow-leaf aster.

Symphyotrichum praealtum is also known as 'Miss Bessie'and she's a very, very, late blooming flower. Blooming in mid to late October, just as the Little ex-asters are starting to fade, Willow-leaf continues to bloom through much of November.

It always survives light frosts and is blooming in my garden today for any pollinators that venture out as the day warms up...As you can see they have!

Hamamelis virginiana is still lighting up the shady garden. Frost doesn't faze it and neither does a heavy freeze.

Fall blooms can't last forever, my friends, and sheets can't stop winter. I am going to miss all the pollinators when winter arrives, in the meantime I will enjoy each and every flower that is still making me smile.

xoxogail



 Inspired by the words of Elizabeth Lawrence, “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year,” Carol of May Dreams Gardens started Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. On the 15th of every month, garden bloggers from all over the blogosphere celebrate their blooms, so pop on over to Carol's and take the Mr Linky magic carpet ride to see what's blooming.

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

February Gardenbloggers' Bloom Day

There's not much showing in my garden right now. By not much, I mean any of my wildflower loves, but there are a few delightful non natives that have been in the garden since it's earliest days. Like the golden yellow daffodils that came with the yard. I've added more over the years and I'll have them in bloom until the temperatures soar into the 80s!

The rivers of Crocus tommasinianus that I planted every year have been eaten by hungry chipmunks and voles/mice. Mr I Don't Garden says I don't get to complain since I have invited wildlife into the garden. He's right, I do have a very welcoming sign posted in the front garden, but that doesn't mean, I want them to eat all my plants!

But, being a non-gardener, he doesn't understand how brokenhearted a gardener can feel when she waits all year to see crocus blooms on chilly winter days and instead of a river of the thousands she's planted there are less than a dozen. I know you all understand.

Did I say there were no native wildflowers blooming. How could I forget, Hamamelis vernalis! She's  still in bloom. I do love this beauty. It has the loveliest small orange/yellow/reddish crepe paper streaming petals that furl and unfurl as the temperature falls and rises. They perfume the garden with their sweet clove vanilla scent on warm days. I planted them for the earliest visiting pollinators and for that unforgettable fragrance. Once you smell them, you will, want them in your garden, too.

I love that not only do winter blooming shrubs and trees flower for months, they almost always have some fragrance. How clever of Mother Nature to give winter bloomers that something special to insure that a little fly, gnat or bee will follow the scent and pollinate the flower.
 

 Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane' is also in bloom. She's unfurled her spidery crepe paper petals like solar collectors. and they're in full sun receivership, waiting for any early pollinating visitors. Even the marcescence leaves do not detract from her red flowers against the nice blue winter sky. There's speculation that the leaves that cling (until after the last flower petal folds up for the season) actually help protect the blooms from foraging mammals, but, I wonder if they might protect the delicate looking flowers from the bitter cold winds that often arrive when they begin to bloom.

In a few weeks the earliest spring ephemerals will be shining heralds of spring's arrival and I will be back on GBBD to share them. In the meantime, head over to May Dreams Gardens to see lots of other posts celebrating blooms.

xoxogail



Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Frostweed flowers are nature's winter magic

Verbesina virginica has begun its flowering magic and I never tire of seeing it blooming on a cold morning.

Verbesina virginica/white crownbeard/wingstem is a valuable food sources for late pollinator visitors, so I've let it seed with some abandon in the wilder parts of the garden.

You can see capillary action in the above stem

Although, more common on the first frosty mornings of fall, here in my Middle Tennessee Zone 7 garden we have all the right ingredients for frostweed flowers to make their special appearance even in winter.

All that is needed is a warm winter day followed by a cold winter night. During the warm day, the Verbesina's roots draw water up into the stem and later that night freezing temperatures force the sap from the stems where they freeze into sculptural ice candy flower curls. The scientific term is capillary action, but

I think it's magic.

Verbesina's quirky magical winter behavior is just one of the many reasons it's a queen among the rough and tumble flowering natives in my garden. Bumble Bees love it. Green Metallic bees love it. Giant Carpenter Bees love it. Butterflies love it. In fact, it's an essential late summer/early fall nectar food for all visiting pollinators and it's an especially important food for  the Monarch Butterfly. It's has been selected for monitoring by Monarch Watch, an organization devoted to education, conservation and research about/for the Monarch Butterfly. It will always have a place in my garden.

I love its candy curls of ice, but, in the back of my mind are images of summer blooms and visiting pollinators.

xoxogail

I am posting this magical flower for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day! Stop by May Dreams Gardens to see what other gardeners are sharing for Bloom Day.

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day June 2016

 Welcome to Bloom Day at Clay and Limestone. It's still green time in my garden. That's the time between spring's extravagant display and summer's rough and tumble wildflower show, but there are some blooms to make a gardener and visitor smile.

Coreopsis 'Mercury Rising'

C 'Mercury Rising' and a dwarf Coreopsis grandiflora

Asclepias tuberosa

Arisaema dracontium and Autumn Fern

Echinacea tennesseensis 

Tradescantia virginiana

Gaura lindheimeri 'Siskiyou Pink'

Oenothera speciosa

Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus'

Rudbeckia hirta 'Chim Chiminee'

Elymus hystrix

Phlox x 'Wanda'

Crocosmia x cocosmiflora 'Orange Lucifer'

 Now make this garden blogger smile and pop over to May Dreams Gardens, where our delightful hostess, Carol, has set up the Mr Linky magic carpet ride to take you to more Bloom Day posts than you can imagine.

Happy Bloom Day to you all.
Gailxoxo

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

January 2016 GBBD

There's usually only one plant blooming in my garden in the middle of January and it's the dazzling Ozark witch hazel. It's blooming right now. I planted it in 2008 to memorialize my mother. (The Memory Tree) It's a lovely tree that all must pass on the way to the front door.

A few years later I planted three more to create a small witch hazel grove in the Garden of Benign Neglect. The long dry summer was hard on them and bud set was low, but, there will be a few blooms later this month.

The original Hamamelis vernalis arrived as a memorial gift from several dear friends who knew me well and asked me what native tree I might want! I knew immediately that winter blooming witch hazel was the perfect choice.

It probably seems odd to choose a plant with witch in its name to honor my mother, but, it was a loving acknowledgement of her late bloom into a joy filled life. Ozark witch hazel blooms in the late winter and that was how it was with my mother. She bloomed in the winter of her life. She sold her house, let go of her old life and moved into a retirement village where she quickly made new friends and tried new activities. Her schedule was full and so was her life. When we phoned her she was often too busy to chat. We were all thrilled when Mom bloomed!

Hamamelis vernalis blooms in the winter when we have just about given up hope that spring will ever arrive. On warm days those amazing orange/yellow/reddish crepe paper petals unfurl to perfume the garden with their sweet vanilla scent. When the temperatures drop they furl back up with the promise of weeks of blossoming.

Their spidery blooms always make me smile. I think my mother would have laughed at my naming that first little Ozark witch hazel after her.  In case you wondered, I call it Bernice.

Happy Garden Bloggers Bloom Day
xoxogail

Now make this garden blogger smile again and pop over to May Dreams Gardens, where our delightful hostess, Carol, has set up the Mr. Linky magic carpet ride to take you to more Bloom Day posts than you can imagine.  Even in winter!

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.