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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Coming Attractions!

 Looking around the garden this week, I was happy to see lots of new growth along with the promise of flowers and berries to come.

The vitex tree, now about 10 feet tall, is covered in buds and will soon be covered in aromatic, purple blooms which the bees and hummingbirds adore!




My husband's grape vine, finally now with a sturdy support structure, is rewarding us with bunches of buds and the promise of bunches of tasty grapes to come. Hopefully this year, we'll get to taste some of them and the whole bush won't get stripped overnight like it did last year.


In containers and in the border in the front garden, the garden mums are covered in buds and some are even starting to bloom.  Throughout the year, I will trim these back as necessary to encourage fresh blooms all the way up into fall.


The hydrangea that was passed along to me by fellow Houston garden blogger Ursula last year seems to like its spot in the light shade of the patio and has put out several clusters of buds this spring.




In the front border, the Lantana "White Gold" is also covered in buds.  I like "White Gold" as well as "New Gold" lantanas because they are smaller, mounding varieties and I don't have to hack them back like I've had to do with other varieties. They also don't form berries, so they continue flowering without needing to be dead headed.




I put these bulbs in a pot last year and promptly forgot about them.  They didn't even come up last year, but earlier this spring, several sturdy stalks came up and now they are about to bloom.  I can't wait to see what they look like!





Finally, I had to show off more of the Gaillardia "Fanfare" that I first showed a couple of weeks ago.  This has been putting out a continuous show of 3 inch blooms -- I'm sure it didn't do that last year.


I must be doing something right!


Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.

6 comments:

Pam's English Garden said...

Dear Jayne, I love your coming attractions and your Gaillardia "Fanfare". You are most certainly doing something right. P x

Rock rose said...

I would certainly say that all your hard work is paying off. Imagine, bunches of delicious grapes. Are they for eating or making wine? I'd love to find a lantana that didn't grow too big. Unfortunately my 'new gold' are always monsters.

Jayne said...

The grape is Mars, it's a table grape. I hope we get to taste some this year! So far, so good with the lantana. I've got quite a lot of them, but they all stayed less than a foot high and 18 inches or so across. Which is good, because they are tucked in among other things.

Corner Gardener Sue said...

Hi Jayne,
I love your coming attractions! I hope you get to your grapes before the critters do. I planted some raspberries last year. I also have some strawberries that should be established enough to get some berries this year. I imagine I'll need to get some netting over them in order to get any of the berries.

Ami said...

The promise of the flowers and fruits is always exciting, isn't it? Ooh, love your 'Fanfare'? Did you get it as a plant, or start from the seeds? Would love to have this myself :)

Jayne said...

Hi Ami, I got the "Fanfare" from Park Seeds last year as small plants. Amazing how they can send live plants through the mail :-)