Becky's MGs Part 7

Time for a 7th thread continuation ...

We came from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1002415/

IT RAINED!!!!! YAY!!!

All these photos will show "wet" plants/blooms! HOORAY!!!

I can't tell you how happy I am that it rained! I was outside after work in the backyard repotting some plants and it started to pour! I did the rain dance and got soaked. LOL! Didn't care! It felt soooo good to be cooler and wet! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

This is one of the Moonflower blooms tonight!

This message was edited Jun 23, 2009 8:42 PM

I didn't want to bore ya with the same old blooms/vines/plants, so ...

Today one of my Dahlia bushes had a couple of blooms. I thought the freeze had totaled this plant. Fortunately for me and the bush ... it survived the winter weather we had this past season. :-)

Okay ... I have to confess ...

These vines (in the pot) scare the heck outta me. This species has just taken off like nothing I have ever seen. Thank goodness I was smart and planted the vines in a pot instead of the ground. It would have covered my fence in a month. Yikes! It's more vigorous than my Passiflora vines along the fence. The growth on these I. indica vines is remarkable each day! I just read in plantfiles that they are perennials! OMG!!!!!

The blooms in plantfile photos do rock though! I can't wait until mine start blooming! Emma sent me a killer vine species! LOL! THANK YOU, EMMA!!! :-D

Oops! I meant to post this side view of another Moonflower bloom. I love this vine! I grow these every year and plan to do so indefinitely! I love this species of MG!!! One of my absolute favorites!

This is a forming gourd. I have no idea what cultivar it is. I neglected to mark each vine. Ineresting shape, huh? ;-)

This is the Yellow Chinese Evening Glory. It's been ridiculously HOT and dry here and this crazy species is thriving! Look at all the new vines coming off of this single plant! HA! It's happy, so I am happy! Now if it would just get going on producing some bloom clusters! I wanna see what this baby's flowers look like!

Sally sent me several small starter tubers of Calystegia hederacea. I thought this one had died, but low and behold it is doing quite well as are the other 2 I planted in the ground. This is another one I can't wait to see bloom. I hope Sally reads this post ... THANK YOU AGAIN!!! And the best thing ... it is a perennial. The other name it goes by is Japanese False Bindweed and the flowers are gorgeous. They look like peony blooms or roses or something unlike any MG bloom I have ever seen. Pretty cool!!!

This is my little Jishi vine growing on my screen porch. Such a cutie! :-)

This is my large pot of Purple AND Pink Flaked I. purpurea seedlings. I am hoping I get both the purple and pink blooming at the same time so that I can cross these vines to possibly get a new vine cultivar that produces blooms with BOTH pink and purple flaked on each bloom. Wouldn't that be cool!?

This will make Joseph faint! LOL!

This sweet potatoe vine in the front garden tipsy pot is cascading from the high pot to almost touching the ground now. This vine is simply divine! And it produces potatoes! Can a plant be more useful that this one???!!!! Looks good and you can eat it when the leaves die back! Ha,ha!

Now I am gonna change things up a bit ...

This is my Queen Crepe Myrtle tree in my front yard. The frost destroyed the beautiful growth I had established on the top. A few branches still survived on the top, but look at this bottom growth! I have cut these growths off repeatedly and the branches still keep coming out at the bottom of this plant. Maybe I need to reconsider it as a bush instead of training as a standard tree form. :-/

The blooms on this Queen are large and the clusters are truly stunning. People stop in front of my house all the time to ask what kind of tree it is. :-)

This is the usual crepe myrtle bush/tree blooms. I have this smaller version (actually it is the normal version of Crepe Myrtle) in my back yard. This one has bright pink flowers, but they are much smaller than the crepe in the front yard.

This is a bush that is called a Necklace Pod. Very unusual baby leaves. This cultivar young leaves feel like a puppy's ear. Very soft and fuzzy. The blooms on this bush are cool, too! Hummers love them for their nectar. It is just on the other side of my Butterfly/Hummer Zen Garden area.

Here is the other side of the fence where the hummer garden is. To the right is my neighbor's yard. You can see my fence with the vines hanging over on the other side. My neighbor gets a nice view, too. You can see the orange blooms in the distance along my fence. My neighbor sees the hummers and butterflies from her yard on the outside of the fence. :-)

And here is the view of the Coral Honeysuckle vine blooms hanging over my giant porterweed bush. These are on my side of the fence in my backyard. The CH vine has become a monster vine with tons of blooms!

Why am I showing you this????

This message was edited Jun 23, 2009 9:43 PM

As I was taking the photos from the outside of the fence. I see this hummer hovering in mid-air. So I took a photo. The hummer zipped in closer to check me out and then took off! I couldn't see it in the photo taken between the two yards because he was so small and the wings move so rapidly. But when I went back into my yard, I saw the hummer again going to each bloom for dinner.

It finally came to rest a bit of a distance from me in my neighbor's old orange tree. You can see it sitting on a branch whioch is just above the Coral Honeysuckle vine blooms. I think it guards this area of my yard from other hummers! It always sits up there in that tree. LOL!

Here's another photo of the bird looking at me while I am taking this photo. Sorry the photo is not sharper, but the hummer was quite a distance from me. It doesn't let me get very close before it zooms off. I get a kick out of these birds! They are so curious and cute! I love it that they have finally found my garden! It took 3 years! So cool!

This message was edited Jun 23, 2009 9:55 PM

becky
the seeds you sent me have sprouted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah and cant wait to see if i have another willow lol thxs so much

The little hummingbird in the tree is adorable!

oh I just love all the plants and flowers u have going, Becky.. and I love those hummers, mine is back and I am so happy.. it took me three years of planting hummer plants to get them here too.. I really like your mrtles.. ours do not bloom until fall, and then there are all colours everywhere.. so glad u got some rain.. I know u needed it.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=6729686 This Becky is Gorgeous~!!!!!like a fern with floweers; I need to buy one and try it here. Just called a necklace plant? I will look in plant fliles...Also~! need that Mad Vine MG Emma sent you ~what was it called? Will it set seed? BE-lieve me I want that kind of coverage for my fences!!!! AWESOME.

Love your plants and blooms Becky. I had a hummer yesterdays evening too at my coral honeysuckle.

Do these yellow flowers set seeds for you? If they do I'd like a few please.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=6729686

Becky here is a shot of a smaller leaf (midsize on the vines scale with flower that I thought was your shibori x GL...not a Lavemder Mist or a LYK(noticed one light blue LYK in only
(one) of your photos of that hybrid) nor is it any from Karens seeds~ hers are too young yet; If its an "Early Call" I will be depessed :~( I do not have any seed in that container form that seed group yet it is the only flower that matched besides your picks? Lav. Mist maybe?
:D

Gorgeous blooms I wish I could recreate that :) Wish I could do a sun dance to get rid of all the rain we get in the UK

Thanks to everyone for your kind compliments on my garden and plants and creatures! :-)

Debra - I used to use a hummingbird feeder, but many of my nectar plants have become monster plants loaded with tons of blooms. I put the feeders away. The little birds prefer the flower nectar instead of the sugar water. Which is a good thing... the sugar water tends to turn bad pretty quickly in this heat. It's also nice not having to make sugar water for the hummers anymore. :-) BTW - My crepe myrtles bloom twice a year here. Once in June for about a month and then again in September.

Darren and Helena - I will certainly share some Necklace Pod (Sophora tomentosa) seeds with you when these blooms ripen into seed pods. The seed pods look like beads connected together which is where this plant gets it's name. It is a nectar plant for hummers and bees. I don't think it will tolerate freezing temps. I have it planted in a sheltered area next to my house on the south side of the backyard fence in the corner. It still gets plenty of sun there, but not the harsh winds. It is drought tolerant. I don't do a single thing to it. I don't even fertilize it. It does much better being ignored. :-) These plants can get quite large, but mine is slow growing and can be pruned to keep it to a certain size. It blooms off and on throughout the year for me. It's a wonderful plant and very unusual. No work involved which makes this plant an excellent species to grow in warmer climates. It can be grown in a container, too. :-) Needs good drainage. It doesn't like wet roots. I have sand in my yard which is perfect for this kind of plant. :-) Please keep a list somewhere of what you want from me because I won't remember. I believe I will have plenty of seeds this year of various plants and hopefully ALL of my MG vines. So start making your list now of what you see that I have which you may want. :-)

Darren - I honestly do NOT know what the vine is that has the beautiful blue bloom. It doesn't look like anything I've grown so it is either an usual cross from one of my vines or a seed that didn't come from me. If it had variegated leaves, it might be blue blizzard. It is definitely an I. nil vine. Sorry I don't know what to tell you! Regardless of what cultivar it might be, it's very pretty! :-)

Also, I hope to get seeds from the I. indica (mad vine) to share as well with you. :-) It's a perennial, so I'm actually kind of excited to have a vine that will come back each year! :-) I need a bigger yard and more space to plant vines! LOL!

I love vines too and I'm always trying to think of ways to plant more vines!!!

darren, I have plenty of I. Indica. I will send you some.. Debra .... Becky, that is why I have a rainbow of monardas.. butterflys and hummers, and I love to watch the night moths come out for the nite blooms..

Becky, the Sophora tomentosa is a beauty

I love the bee balms. They are so cool! And they hold up pretty well in the heat. Can you collect seeds from the flower? If so, how?

i have a great idea to have more vines,if you have bamboo cut a stake anout 6-7' tall and sink it into the ground about 1' where you want it and like magic you have a verticale trellis and room in your flower beds for more vines,you can cut the limbs to where they wont poke you when you walk by them i will go ttake a pic and let you all see what im talking about i hope this helps

yes. we want to see.... I have lots of bamboo stakes in the wood pile in the yard...

that is what I have too as well as branches.. mine are twining everywhere.

Melisa - I, too, would like to see your bamboo stakes.

Debra - Your monarda and moth photo is really cool! :-)

Today I got a great photo opportunity. You all know I have rodents that come around my bird feeder. There is a hawk locally that hunts the rats. Well, today the hawk showed up right in my yard and I grabbed my camera and got a couple of shots! The hawk landed on top of the bird feeder eyeing it's prey.

Another photo of this beautiful bird.

And this is one of my sweet doves. :-)

No bloom photos today.

I love those birds, I too have a hawk here and he hangs out LOL I wish I had blooms to post, but the heat spends them before I get home.. I love your dove.. it is prettier than the ones we have here.. looks like there is a rose tint to it..

Thanks, Debra! I've been told that the dove is a Mourning Dove and the Hawk is possibly a Cooper's Hawk, but I don't know for sure. I think the pink color on the dove might be from the sunset.

Here is another photo of the dove. They are beautiful and timid birds. They show up several times a day at my bird feeder. I have about 6-7 that come. I used to have a flock of them, but their numbers have dwindled down. Not sure why. I live in redneck country, so they might be hunted and killed. Which is a real shame...

we have coopers hawk here in Kansas.. your doves might be migrating north as the summer heats up.. mine are here until midsummer then they go somewhere... else that is.. I have two pair in my back yard.. no babies that I have seen Yet.. but I do have a new male BlueJay baby, and a new female cardinal baby.. ;D do u have the black and yellow birds there? I do this year and can't find the name..

Looking at photos of hawks, I don't think mine is a Cooper's Hawk, afterall.

The dove population was large at my feeders a year ago. I am down to just a few since then. I don't think they are migrating. These doves stay year round for the most part. I think something is killing them. They are VERY skittish and scared of humans. The cardinals and bluejays and woodpeckers are not afraid of me at all. They come to feeder when I am out in the yard, but the doves do not. They are very afraid. Maybe for good reason, huh?

No yellow and black birds here. Mostly brown, blue, or red birds! LOL! Though I do get yellow finches in the Fall/Winter, but they are brown then too.