What's Blooming Now?

It's well past Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, but I wanted to post some of the beautiful things that are blooming here at Our Little Acre. Some of them are the same as last August, but there are some new ones as well.

The gardens are looking tired and dusty, due to the heat and lack of rain. Large cracks in the soil quickly soak up any moisture that comes their way and any watering we do seems to be just a drop in the bucket. Yet, somehow the plants pull from deep within themselves and produce lovely blooms.

Coral Drops (Bessera elegans) are new to the garden this year. Once they put up the tall flower stalks, it seemed to take forever for the buds to form and then even longer for them to open. They hang down, so you have to lift them to see what's inside, but it's worth the effort. They're pretty when viewed from above, too. They aren't hardy to zone 5, so I'll need to lift them late next month.


Veronica spicata 'Royal Candles' has been a non-stop bloomer. I've deadheaded it part of the time, but it's also gone for several weeks without me touching it. It alway looks good, no matter what I do or don't do.

Rudbeckia 'Prairie Sun' , interspersed with Heliopsis 'Loraine Sunshine' just keeps popping them out there. I grew both of these from seed last year.


Clematis 'Mrs. P. Robert Brydon' is in its second full year here and it has really shot up. While it's considered to be a bush-type clematis, it's grown to six feet tall already. Once the blooms are finished, it will have puffs of fuzzy seeds where the flowers once were.


Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum superbum 'Aglaia') is new to the garden this year. I love the frilly pom-pom daisies and would like to get 'Ice Star' if I can find it.


Tropical Hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Carolina Breeze')


Zinnia 'Profusion Apricot' and 'Profusion Fire'


Everlasting (Xeranthemum annuum) is an easy-to-grow annual that I grew for the first time this year, from seed. The foliage is silvery-gray and the flowers are white, pink, and purple.




Celosia argentea var. plumosa 'Kimono Red'


Lilium 'Black Beauty'


Canna x. generalis 'Lippo'


Oriental Lily 'Sumatra' is planted next to 'Black Beauty' and the colors echo each other. The fragrance is out of this world in that part of the garden.


Geranium 'Rozanne' and Blackberry Lily (Belamcanda chinensis 'Hello Yellow'). You can also see Coreopsis 'Zagreb'.

Dianthus 'Siberian Blues' isn't really blue, but it is a really unique shade of purple.

Zinnia 'Envy' I planted these with white Cosmos this year, but neither is blooming very profusely yet and 'Envy' isn't nearly as green as it was last year.

Helenium autumnale

These are in various shades of red, yellow, orange and a combination of those colors. They are loaded with beautiful blooms, as usual. Last year, they got so tall and flopped badly, so I moved them this spring and put them up against the split-rail fence. No flopping!