Sunday, April 25, 2010

My Favorite April Blooms

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It's hard to pick favorites.  Every day as I find a new bloom it becomes my favorite.  I know my two roses have been shown many times before, but really can you ever see too many pictures of such beautiful flowers?  Belinda's Dream and Knockout Radrazz have been blooming since February.  This month they have been more beautiful than ever.  The Florida Gold sedum is blooming tiny yellow flowers which were a complete surprise to me.  The blanket flowers were a little late in showing off but late April brought an abundance of blooms.  Bleeding Heart clerodendrum is a new addition to the back fence in the shady corner and it is doing a great job of brightening that dark spot.  The pentas which have been a mainstay for color at My Garden Path were knocked to the ground this winter and are only just now putting out leaves about 6" above ground.  Tall red pentas were purchased and planted earlier this month to give the butterflies a reason to return.  Those pentas are such workhorses.  They just pump out blooms constantly.  When the purple, pink and white ones finally grow back to their former glory butterflies should abound once again.  I love to grow several different salvias and this Victoria Blue is a favorite of mine which just started putting out its long purple plumes earlier this month. 

I hope all my gardening friends are enjoying many, many blooms in their April gardens. 

8 comments:

  1. I like your Bleeding Heart Clerodendrum plant.Do you grow yours in a container as I looked it up and read that they can be really invasive? Any problems with this vine for you?

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  2. My sedum is blooming,too.I,too,love your Bleeding Heart.And I love seeing photos of your roses.Keep 'em coming.

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  3. `NanaK, I never get tired of seeing photos of roses. I am going to add gold Sedum to my garden this year, it looks very drought tolerant.Janice

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  4. I understand why you want to show your roses again, ME TOO!!! lol. I was also quite surprised when I frist saw sedum bloomings. A added bonus, isn't it?

    Love your bleeding heart vine too! I saw a different one in our local HD. Loved the flower. Hesitating if I should get one. Also read about it could be very invasive if planted in the ground.

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  5. My Belinda's Dream finally bloomed and it is beautiful. I love your clerondendron...it's a gorgeous blue. I, too, was surprised the sedum bloomed...it was a pleasant surprise. It definitely was a hard month to limit the favorites since there are so many beautiful blooms.

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  6. sanddune - I planted my vine in the ground. I have plenty of room for it to spread, so I'm not too worried about invasiveness - yet. I'll let you know as time goes by. You may be reading a future post about how I'm fighting the bleeding heart vine :)

    ChrisC - Thanks for enjoying my roses. I'm hoping I can be as successful as YardBoy.

    Janis - So far I am loving the sedum. It seems to be cold and heat tolerant as well as not needing much water. Mine were pretty tiny when I planted them so they are still small, but I was looking at a picture I took right after planting and they have grown more than I realized. I'm hoping they will be ground cover in that area.

    Ami - You might have more problem with the invasiveness of bleeding heart because you are in such a warm zone. I'm hoping for vigorous growth because I would love for it to cover my fence in that shady area. I've found that invasive usually means I won't kill it :)

    Susan - I am hoping I still love Belinda's Dream as much in the summer as I do now. So far, she's a winner. Already there are 7 more buds on this bush.

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  7. Janice gave me great advice on my Knockouts -- cut them back and WHOOSH! they bloom aplenty. I'm loving 'em!
    Just got a bleeding heart vine cutting and I'm looking forward to it swallowing a fence. I didn't know it was in the Clerodendrum family! That is a very cool, party-hearty bunch of plants.

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  8. Penny - Do you cut the roses back after a bloom flush or at a certain time of year? And I'm with you on hoping the bleeding heart will swallow a fence!

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Thank you for travelling down My Garden Path with me. I love hearing from you. Please leave a comment and share what is going on in your gardens.

NanaK