Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: August 2014

Okay, enough with the long blog posts for now!  It's time for a quick-and-dirty blog post with pretty pictures and not much else.  These are some of the plants I had blooming in my garden today.  For more information about any of them, feel fee to post questions in the comments section!  For many more photos, click here.  For more Garden Bloggers Bloom Day posts from all around the blogosphere, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.


Spigelia marilandica, second bloom after deadheading a few weeks ago


Spigelia marilandica


Asclepias tuberosa, also reblooming after deadheading


Honeybee on Asclepias tuberosa


Clerodendrum bungei, one of my beautiful monsters


Lobelia cardinalis, still going strong


Aralia elata has been dropping tiny white flowers all over everything for a month


When was the last time you took a close look at the flowers of Liriope muscari?


Begonia grandis 'Early Bird', my own early-blooming selection of the species


Hosta plantaginea, "August lily", night-blooming and wonderfully fragrant


Datura wrightii, last night


Datura wrightii, this morning


One more because I can't get enough of those daturas!


Morning glory (Ipomoea sp.), growing as a weed


Sphaerorrhiza sarmentiana (Gesneriaceae), blooming on my windowsill at work

Lazy summer days

Temperatures cooled down a bit this evening--meaning around 80 degrees (27 C)--so I thought I would do some light garden work after dinner.  There's a reason why this is such an uncharacteristic thing for me to do.  The temperature was deceptive and an hour later I was drenched in sweat, but at least I got some begonias planted (yes, I'm still planting begonias, and still have a few more to go!) and Vitex agnus-castus deadheaded.  The plant was just about finished blooming and trimming it back now will give me a good second bloom in a few weeks.  I'm already seeing a second bloom on my butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa), which I deadheaded just two weeks ago.