The Garden in May

I was talking to my dad in England on the phone yesterday and he commented "I was looking at your blog yesterday and you haven't updated it in a month!!"

Consider me chastised!  You would think, since I'm currently not working full time, that I would have all the time in the world for things like blogging.  But to tell the truth, since we've been having (so far) a very mild, pleasant spring, I've been more inclined to be outside walking or puttering in the garden than to be inside writing about it.

But in the last couple of days it has felt like summer has arrived in the Houston area.  The temperature has crept up and so has the humidity.  So today I went out early for my walk, and now I can sit in the cool and write about the garden!

The daylilies in the island bad are coming into their glory.  We have a number of different varieties, none of which I can remember the names of now.  I'll call this one "Peaches & Cream" - I'm sure it won't mind.

This is another variety I don't know the name of. Earlier in spring I divided this one and put some of it in the other island bed.  The newly planted cutting hasn't started flowering yet, but the original is bursting into bloom.

The other day I was sitting having breakfast when I caught sight of a hummingbird flitting from bloom to bloom on the Major Wheeler honeysuckle.  Naturally, my camera was not handy!  But at least I know there are hummers around now and am in the process of making some nectar to fill my feeders to put out today.

Here's a close up of the native honeysuckle.  I'm glad it's finally doing something.  I planted it three years ago and it was very puny for a while.

I was reading somewhere that this particular vine is not the sort that will vigorously cover a trellis so it's not great if you want it to hide an eyesore.  As it happens, I have creeping fig growing on the sound wall behind it and the combination of the two vines looks rather attractive and hides the ugly sound wall.

The Rose of Sharon is also bursting in to full bloom.  This has grown from a cutting I bought with me from my previous house, when we moved here eight years ago.  It's a favorite of bees and hummingbirds.

Here's another hummingbird favorite, Turk's Cap. I have a bit of a dilemma with this.  It's in a container, but managed to pop a root through the bottom of the pot and is now rooted to the ground.  It probably needs to be either repotted or planted in the ground somewhere (if I had anywhere for it) but I would probably kill it in the process.  So I'll leave it where it is for as long as it lasts and then replace it when necessary.

Well today is Friday the 13th, which means that Sunday is the 15th - Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, hosted each month by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

I'm going to link this post up with her May Garden Blogger's Bloom Day when she puts it up.

This post is also linked with the following memes:

Flower Friday, hosted by Aquariann

Floral Friday Fotos hosted by Nick V.

Today's Flowers hosted by Denise at An English Girl Rambles.

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

Earth Day in Jayne's Country Garden

In honor of Earth Day 2012, Eric and I planted a Page Mandarin Orange tree.  Well, okay, let me correct myself here.  Eric and I picked it out, drawn to it by nothing more scientific than the wonderful aroma of the blossoms. Eric did the actual digging and planting by himself. 

He's getting to be quite the professional at planting trees, having planted three in our garden now - the Sam Houston Peach, the Page Mandarin and the River Birch. 

Another little project we've been working on in our on-going efforts to hide and/or disguise the ugly wall at the back of the garden is a trellis, on which will grow a native honeysuckle 'Major Wheeler' - Lonicera sempervirens 'Major Wheeler'.   Since the area in which we want it to grow is thick with roots, we elected to raise up a small portion, using the same landscape bricks we have used in our other beds.                           

Also planted in that section is a Cleyera, which I originally planted in a little raise berm when trying an experiment in this same area in 2010 and a new Hamelia patens which I just planted after we had put the landscape bricks down and back-filled with organic garden soil.

Hopefully, when the honeysuckle gets here it will eventually hide the not-too-pretty pressure-treated 2x4's we used to support the trellis.

Further along the wall, I noticed the first blooms on the Rose of Sharon.  This is the same plant I brought with me as a small twig from my old house four years ago. I'm very happy that it has taken so well to it's current location.  Others I brought over and planted in other locations in the garden haven't done nearly as well.

In the new island bed, the Marguerite daisy is blooming beautifully and is attracted all sorts of winged visitors, including the little one in this photo.  I'm not sure what he is, but he certainly was enjoying the nectar in these blooms yesterday.

I discovered yesterday that the corner of the garden between the island bed and the small trellis hiding the utility boxes is a nice place to sit out in the late afternoon. There's shade offered by the pine tree and also the Vitex tree and it offers a different view of the garden to what we normally see from the patio.

Well that's it from me -- the outdoors is calling.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

Earth Day 2012

The Canopy Project

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