Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - September 2014

Welcome to Bloom Day in my September garden. Thanks to Carol of May Dreams Gardens for hosting this monthly tour of gardens around the world once again.

Here in Southeast Texas, for the last two days we have been enjoying our first really cool and pleasant weather since spring. The official beginning of autumn is still a week in the future and yet one might almost believe that it has arrived early.

My mid-September garden does not have an abundance of blooms. We are in transition here. The summer bloomers are slowly shutting down and fall bloomers are just beginning. Still, there are some colors to be found in addition to the falling leaves.


Some of the color is provided not by blossoms but by berries. Beautyberries, in this case. This shrub with the white berries still remains mostly untouched by the birds, while the shrubs with purple fruits have already been pretty much stripped of their berries.
 Lantana is in its glory at this time of year.


Here is the cream and gold.

The purple trailing lantana.

And 'Dallas Red.'

Autumn clematis lives up to its name.
 The esperanzas, too, enjoy the late summer/early fall weather.

The mahogany esperanza.

And the traditional yellow, known familiarly as "Yellow Bells."

All of the basils look forward to autumn. None more than African blue basil, a favorite with bees. 

The butterfly gingers continue their bloom.

Turk's Cap - a favorite with the migrating hummingbirds. 

The weird little purple blossoms of porterweed.

Blue plumbago is one of my most dependable summer and autumn bloomers.

Crossvine is covered in these trumpet-shaped blossoms in spring but continues to send out a few of them right through the summer and fall months.

The salvia named 'Coral Nymph.'

The datura sends out a quantity of these creamy blossoms every night. By midday the next day, they have closed. 

Finally, the pineapple sage also is blooming, another boon to passing hummingbirds.
It may be that we have seen the last of our mid-90s F. weather with triple digit heat indices for this year and we look forward to mild days ahead. If those mild days can provide us with occasional rains - well, indeed, my gardener's cup will runneth over!

Happy Bloom Day!


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