Blooms in October

Somehow we’ve arrived at Garden Blogger’s Bloomday for the tenth month, October. There’s not a lot of blooming going on in my garden this month, and I’m okay with that. Even though I’m a monthly participant in May Dream’s Gardens Bloomday posts, I am not a gardener who gardens for the flowers. My regular readers know this, but I, occasionally, still feel the need to explain. Evidently so does Dan Hinkley, who—in his book Windcliff—carries on about the importance of foliage and quotes Christopher Lloyd as saying “It is an indisputable fact that appreciation of foliage comes at a late stage in our education. It is undoubtedly an acquired taste, one that grows on us.” So, foliage acknowledged, let’s have a look at the flowers. First up, as you walk into the back garden, is Schefflera delavayi…

The blooms have the pollinators all aflutter…

You can’t walk into the back garden without hearing a hum.

When you’re short on flowers, berries make great stand-ins. After all you can’t have one without the other. Lonicera x brownii 'Dropmore Scarlet'…

And buds! They’re the promise of future flowers, especially like these on the Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Akebono’, which will open to bright orange florets in February of next year.

I was surprised to catch a glimpse of this pink begonia flower; these are usually pinched as soon as I see them. I missed this one!

I bought a single Echeveria NOID early in the spring and planted it in one of my dish planters. It quickly sent up three bloom spikes (one was accidently snapped off by a garden visitor), all have bloomed the entire summer long. I and my hummingbird friends have appreciated the long-lasting beauty.

Oh, and it also made new plants! One (the larger rosette in the center) became eight.

The blooms of Persicaria microcephala ‘Red Dragon’ are going to miss being able to lay on Ceanothus ‘Dark Star’ (I’m digging the ceanothus out this winter) …

Mahonia eurybracteata 'Soft Caress'

Close-up

Somewhere along the line my Murdannia loriformis 'Bright Star' bloomed. I didn’t even notice, not that the flowers are all that showy.

NOID Bromeliad…

Now we’re passing through the driveway, I keep pinching the basil when it tries to start a flower, as here…

But sometimes I miss…

I grew a packet of Gomphrena seeds this year, one flower is all I got.

I think these will be the last papery bracts of the bougainvillea for the year.

Out front I discovered my newly planted cyclamen have fallen from the heavy rain. Then again one of those rocks is on top of a couple stems. Perhaps the squirrels have been working nearby?

Rosemary close-up

And a photo of the overall plant.

Poncirus trifoliata (aka Citrus trifoliata) has progressed to the colored-up fruit stage.

I love this plant, for the huge thorns and the colorful, fragrant, fruit.

Hakonechloa

Mahonia fortunei 'Curlyque'

Fatsia japonica

The tall Tetrapanax papyrifer have begun their annual push to bloom.

They are so determined, and sadly struck down by frost every year. Although there will eventually be a year when the flowers are finally able to open, I just know it.

Mahonia gracilipes close-up.

And an overall of the plant.

The Loropetalum 'Jazz Hands' mini I bought in July is looking good and starting to bloom, well, there’s one bloom!

Finally, I wrap up this Bloomday post with a photo of my neighbor’s hydrangea. It’s the time of year all the bright blue flowers fade to a dark purple mauve. Well, all except one. It’s still flying its summer colors and I couldn’t love it more. I am as well, less in a blue sort-of-way, and more in a still wearing flip-flops sort of way…

Weather Diary, Oct 14: Hi 64, Low 46/ Precip .04 

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