Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - October 2012

Welcome to Bloom Day, October edition, in my Southeast Texas, zone 9a, garden. Let's get right to it. Here are some of the blooms that are brightening my garden today.

I've featured this 'Big Momma' Turk's cap many times in my blog posts. It blooms twelve months of the year in our climate and is a haven for hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies especially during the colder months of the year when little else is blooming.

A close-up of one of 'Big Momma's' blossoms shows its structure which is so attractive to the pollinators.

Sweet-smelling almond verbena is at its best at this time of year.

'Senorita Rosalita' cleome has bloomed faithfully all summer long and now well into the fall.

And speaking of old faithfuls, my old species cannas will continue to bloom until first frost.

Floribunda rosa 'Monkey Business' is putting out its autumn flush of blooms.

Blooms have been notably lacking in my old miniature rose 'Red Cascade' this year, but now as the months dwindle down, it has relented and is giving me some of these tiny, perfect roses. I'm glad because I am quite fond of this plant.

The Knockout family of roses blooms most of the year, but the blooms get smaller as the year wears on. Still, I quite like these pretty little single pink blossoms.

And here is the yellow variety of Knockout called 'Radsunny.'

'Darcy Bussell' continues to crank out these lush, velvety roses on a regular basis.

The mislabeled "white" mistflower merrily produces a profusion of these lavender blossoms. Although it isn't what I was expecting, I find it is growing on me. I quite like it.

Nearby, the tropical milkweed is in full bloom, enticing passing butterflies, and offering its leaves as a nursery for Monarch and Queen butterflies.

Autumn sage is also a big winner with butterflies, as well as bees and hummingbirds - basically, all the pollinators like it.

Likewise the salvia 'Mystic Spires.' I think you can see one happy bee on the right "spire."

Another sage, the Salvia coccinea or "scarlet sage" that came up as a "volunteer" in one of my garden beds this summer has made many migrating hummingbirds happy this fall.

Autumn, of course, is the best time of year for the native lantana.

The 'Dallas Red' lantana was added to the garden this year and is just beginning to put on a show for me.

The Phlox paniculata, or summer phlox, has now become autumn phlox. (I think its name is 'Texas Pink'.)

The plant that we call "yellow bells" or Esperanza, more properly named Tecoma stans, will continue its glorious bloom at least until first frost. Last winter, which hardly even qualified for the name "winter," this plant that lives in the protected corner of the "L" of my house, never stopped blooming.  

The red firespike, Odontonema strictum, a resident in my garden for three years, is blooming for the first time this fall, a reminder that sometimes one has to have patience with a plant. 

And speaking of the need for patience, I was completely out of patience with these marigolds that I had planted to add some color in a drab spot of the garden. Then last week I walked by the bed and found them covered in tiny blooms. Mother Nature does love to mess with me!

Jatropha dies back to its roots in the winter here, but it comes back in the late spring and gives me a profusion of these blossoms all summer and fall.

The yellow cestrum, another butterfly favorite, never dies back and never quite stops blooming, although it does slow down in winter.

Autumn really is just about the best time of year in my garden. It is almost like a second spring but with less humidity and it is a time of a profusion of blooms. I've shown you just a few of them today. Thank you for visiting my garden and happy Bloom Day to you,

Thank you once again to Carol of May Dreams Gardens for hosting this monthly meme.