Sunshine and Roses

This is the first part of the garden to see the sun when it rises in the morning.  Located on the east side, it is a sunny patch for about seven hours each day.

Roses are the anchor plants providing greenery and blooms all year long.  The ferny foliage of yarrow and the constantly blooming sweet allyssum  along with sedum 'Florida Gold' have worked well as ground cover all through the winter.

Spring brings a more exuberant flush of blooms to the roses but there are flowers in all the seasons.  Lots of re-seeding native salvias provide background and attract buterflies, bees and hummingbirds once Spring arrives.

Sweet fragrances fill the air and make me smile while I enjoy my morning cup of coffee.  Nothing like watching the sunrise over this beautiful view.

There are many reseeding and spreading companion plantings flourishing now that it is springtime.  I'm loving the yarrow.  Sure hope it blooms for me.  It has really multiplied since the warm weather returned.  The guara is looking especially good this year too, though it's hard to capture in a photo. 

Well, I guess it's time to put the camera away, take my coffee with me and finish up the morning watering chores.  Only, it's not a chore.  It's something I love to do.

 

My Favorite April Blooms

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. 

Sunny Blooms

Sunny garden areas at My Garden Path are very sparse but there are a few spots where sun loving plants grow and bloom.


The Tampa Vervain, Glandularia tampensis, which was purchased in February of this year is blooming non-stop.  The Sedum Florida Gold is showing some growth as well.

This little Bulbine frutescens was recently purchased and planted because of a post Ami at Southeast Florida Garden Evolvement wrote.  I think I flunked color placement by putting orange next to red, but I think the butterflies will like it.  That little plant is really only a portion of two plants I split apart to spread out in this area of the garden. 

This Bulbine, shown below,  is one of four I planted in February.  It was nipped by cold on the tips and it and its brothers have just been sitting there doing nothing.  So, I bought the ones that are now blooming to give these guys some competition.  Hopefully, now that I have some blooming Bulbine I can leave these alone long enough to let them recover if they will.  They appear to have a tighter clumping habit than my new ones and I wonder if they could be a different type of Bulbine.  If they ever get off the mark and grow and bloom it will be interesting to see if they have a different flower.  That's my butterfly magnet passionvine, Passiflora incarnata, in the background.  It dies to the ground every winter but returns every spring and soon takes over the trellis, the fence, and anything that stands still near it. 

At the beginning of February I planted my first two rose bushes.  This Knockout RADrazz is very small, I purchased it in a one gallon container, but it keeps up a steady stream of blooms. 

Plants are growing, birds are singing, a few butterflies have flitted past along with one or two bees checking out the emerging flowers, My Garden Path is on a path of renewal. 

Beautiful Weather for Plant Shopping & Planting

The Riverview Garden Club held a plant sale where I found plants donated by the Riverview Flower Farm.  What a wonderful surprise that was!  I'm not a member of this group just a happy, happy customer. The Sedum Florida Gold on the right is one of my greatly desired plants for this year's garden.  This is a cold hardy and heat tolerant ground cover for sunny areas.  I've been at my Home Depot garden center just about every other day waiting for their shipment to come.  I couldn't believe my good fortune to find it at this sale.  The Tampa Vervain on the left is a Florida native plant named after my hometown.  How could I resist?

It was a very good weekend at My Garden Path.