Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: May 2011

Come and walk with me through my garden and let me show you some of my blooms.


You may have heard that we are suffering an exceptional drought in Texas, but it takes more than a little dry weather to daunt the heirloom "ditch lilies."


In the wildflower bed, a purple liatris blooms among the Mexican hat flowers.


Nearby, blanket flowers lift their colorful faces to the sun.


As do the flowers of tickseed.


In the wild hedge along the back fence, the elderberries are blooming and are frequently visited by butterflies like this Tiger Swallowtail.


When she finishes with the elderberry, she moves on to a pink buddleia.


Flowers in the herb garden are often overlooked because they tend to be rather inconspicuous, but I quite like the dainty little blossoms of the Mexican oregano, blooming here in front of the parsnips.


And what could be prettier than these little blooms of the citronella-scented geranium.


The African blue basil is not a culinary basil, but its blooms are very attractive to bees and other pollinators and I love its distinctive basil scent.


Surprisingly - to me at least - the Hinckley columbines are still sending out these lovely yellow blossoms to wave in the wind.


All over my garden, the many varieties of Salvia greggii plants have been blooming their hearts out for weeks.


The species cannas in the bed along the fence are sending up their flames of bloom.


And the yellow cestrum has bloomed continuously for weeks now.


I've shown you several of my daylilies recently. Here's a new one that is sending out its first blooms just in time for Bloom Day.


Yellow poppies and purple verbena make a nice combination.


Nearby, the Texas primrose adds another accent of yellow.


The 'Montrose Purple' vitex is covered with these not quite yet completely open lilac-like flowers.


One of the knocks on Knockout roses is that they lack scent, but when I walk past this bed of 'Radazz' I receive a wave of heavy sweet rose scent.


I find the same to be true of the pink variety, but I haven't noticed it with the yellow.


More sweet scent wafts up from the 'Laura Bush' petunia.


The gerberas turn their happy faces to the sun.


The Turk's cap 'Big Momma' is a great attractor of hummingbirds and butterflies.


These blossoms of the almond verbena shrub are not very showy but the scent is heavenly.


Also sweetly scented are the 'Meyer' lemon blooms. The tree already has several small lemons from an earlier flush of blooms but now it is full of flowers again.


The yellow bells of Esperanza are "ringing." The plant died back to its roots during the winter but lost no time in getting up and growing this spring.


Let's end our tour this month with the queen of the May garden, the Southern magnolia. My two large trees are covered with hundreds of these creamy white blossoms.

I'm so glad you stopped by for a visit. Please come back soon. And don't forget to visit our Bloom Day hostess Carol of May Dreams Gardens for links to other participating blogs.

Happy Bloom Day and happy gardening!