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queerbychoice ([personal profile] queerbychoice) wrote2015-08-15 01:30 am

August Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

My garden has been less than spectacular this summer. I skipped July Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day because I had so little to show, and I have equally little to show this month. But at least now I have a backlog of pictures from July to add to the ones from August, and I guess it adds up to enough to merit making a post.

The big excitement in August has been that my tiny pomegranate tree (Punica granatum 'Wonderful') is blooming for the very first time ever. This "tree" is about three years old but still only about one foot tall. I was surprised to find a flower bud on it.

Punica granatum 'Wonderful' (pomegranate)


That bud has now turned into the flower you see below.

Punica granatum 'Wonderful' (pomegranate)




I have a few other plants blooming, but since they're the same few plants that have been blooming since June (California fuchsia, mainly) it hasn't seemed worth photographing them again. The only other plant I've bothered to photograph this month is my prostrate coastal goldenbush (Isocoma menziesii), which I bought entirely by accident this spring - it was unlabeled, and I mistook it for a different species. If I'd known what it was, I would have assumed it had no hope of surviving in my distinctly non-coastal climate, so I would never have purchased it. It has surprised me, though, by doing perfectly well in the pot I put it in, where it gets plenty of water.

Isocoma menziesii (prostrate coastal goldenbush)


I also photographed only two plants blooming in July. One of them was the Sacramento rosemallow (Hibiscus lasicarpus), an endangered species that I've planted in a pot next to the one containing the prostrate coastal goldenbush above.

Hibiscus lasiocarpus (Sacramento rosemallow)


The other was the Western columbine (Aquilegia formosa) in a pot in my front yard. Notice a theme here? My potted plants are the only ones that have been getting enough water to bloom. Well, except for the pomegranate. That managed to bloom in the ground.

Aquilegia formosa (Western columbine)


This was the first time my columbine ever bloomed, so I took several pictures of it.

Aquilegia formosa (Western columbine)


Here's one last picture of the columbine.

Aquilegia formosa (Western columbine)

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