What's Blooming Now?

I'm always looking for late blooming annuals to add color to my perennial gardens. I have Snapdragons, zinnias, petunias & Cleome. Any ideas?

Dahlias!!!!!

The only perennial blooms I have now are dahlias, cannas and sedum 'Autumn Joy'. Oh, and all the buddleias because I constantly deadhead them.

There are still a few annuals blooming (lantana, tiny mice, petunias, and mandevilla) and the pansies I bought for winter will go in tomorrow,

I love dahlias but my ground doesn't. I get lots of green & few flowers.

The mums are all coming in now & Immortality (white iris) is reblooming. Lots of phlox, sedum, hosta & such. I'd still like some different annuals that I can plant next year for late color in the iris/daylily beds. Maybe I'll just do lots more of the zinnias & snapdragons. Io'm always looking...

I have melampodiums, morning glory,marigolds,Touch me nots,
Orange cosmos, cosmos bipinnatus, celosias, daturas, second blooms malva zebrina,four o clocks, black eyes suasan vine,
mums of course,probably a few more I can't remember and it is dark out now so can't go look.

Windy, sounds very colorful. I'll have to check these out!@ thank you!

Wanda, this has done well for me, and probably would do even better in the ground: Cuphea llavea 'Tiny Mice'

Darius--just what I need, more mice sneaking into my house! Isn'r a fat rat enought for now (Named Spot)? Like the plant--wierd & nice.

Wanda, it looks MUCH better early in the season, LOL! Here's a couple of shots...

And, a close-up which shows why they are called 'tiny mice'

Darius--how lovely!! Oh--& so was that package the mailman dropped off today....

I grew these this summer and I think they will be on my must have list from now on. They are still blooming and looking better than any of the other annuals that I have. They did not bloom until a couple weeks after everything else had all ready started but once they started they have consistently had flowers and looked good. If I remember right these are Gazzania's
Alice

One more photo of them.
Alice

This Plumbago (leadwort) is one of my most favorite fall flowers. It blooms from late summer until everything else is gone, is a spectacular color, and is hardy and troublefree. No one seems to eat it, either! (Not an annual, but VERY easy and not huge. It fits between things!

http://plantsdatabase.com/go/876/

This message was edited Oct 2, 2003 12:16 PM

Toadlily is just beginning its long bloom season. My summer phlox are still going strong, and a couple clematis are re-blooming. My hardy ageratum and spiderwort that resist all efforts to get rid of them are blooming.

I have 3 different wild asters that are in full bloom, as are my hybrids. My scutellaria is still blooming, as are some of my late-sowed CA poppy and shirley poppies. My earliest blooming Erica just opened its first blossoms yesterday, they are going to be going strong until next April at least :) My autumn colchicum and sternbergias are blooming, and my corydalis lutea has been in continual bloom since mid-April.

One of my hardy cyclamen poked up a bud yesterday, but I haven't been outside today to see if it opened yet.

As you can see, I grow tons of stuff for bloom 365 days a year, unless it is completely buried under snow.

Well, I can't see that any of my annuals escaped the "hard freeze" last night. My yard is too open to the wind & cold. I see dead Cleome, Zinnias, Snapdragons, Cannas, Petunias & more. Guess I'll get to fill the Yardy Cart(re-cycling) this week. SIGH>>>>

Lupy, when do you sow your California and Shirley poppies for fall bloom? I didn't know it was possible to do that in this climate. I am very excited about a fall flush of poppies!

This is my first year of CA poppies; when the first ones bloomed and set seed, I broke open a seed pod to see what they were like. Those sprouted and are blooming now!

I am continually experimenting with trying to get corn poppies and shirley poppies to bloom through the growing year. The ones blooming now I scattered seed and got it to sprout in May. They are much scrawnier than the ones that I overwinter, fewer branches, smaller bloom, but hey, a poppy is a poppy! The ones that I planted in late August are just sprouting now. I hope to keep about 20 plants alive over winter, you wouldn't believe how much better they are that way!

Lupy, I would believe it because when I lived in Seattle the Shirleys sprouted in Jan - Feb and grew into huge plants by the time they bloomed. They were so big they were almost like small shrubs. I haven't had any luck wintering over seedlings here and even getting them started in early spring is difficult. Too cold and they freeze or don't germinate but if I wait until it gets too warm they bloom when the plants are quite small and then peter out in the heat. How do you manage to winter them over? Please tell me your secret. {:^)

This message was edited Oct 5, 2003 8:26 PM

Wandasflowers Excess green and few flowers sounds like you may have an excess of nitrogen. Dalhias don't need much fertilizer and when they do it's best to keep the nitrogen on the light side.

I don't feed my flowerbeds, but I do throw grass clippings in them. Neighbors & friends across town are having the same results. Really stunted flowers. Could it be our weather?

Are the grass clippings from a lawn that has recently been fertilized? That could result in lots of supplemental nitrogen added to the garden without your realizing it.

I use grass clippings to fertilize and mulch lots of things in my garden but not my Dalhias.I don't use fertilizer or weed killer on my grass. The grass grows good enough without suplemental food other than the grass clippings that I don't pick up.

You don't say how thick you put these clippings on . To green to thick and to close could be to hot.

Some weed killers are carried on through the mulching process and have a sterlizing effect on the compost so I am careful to reject offers to take other peoples clippings.

I don't know a thing about your weather but the question I have is how good do dalhias grow in your area normaly? I still think excess nitrogen is the prime suspect.

Hope this gives you some clues. Regards Ernie.

I just looked at my business partner's Dahlias.Plenty of sun, cypress mulch about 2 inches deep, used no fertilizers on them. Green looks okay, but not many flowers & under 2 inches across. I'll think about all this and maybe try planting them in a seperate bed next year.

Wandasflowers I don't know what cypress mulch is. I would guess leaves , could you tell me please? Thanks regards Ernie

Our portulaca is still in bloom as are the marigolds, snapdragons, a few petunias here and there, and some other ones I can't think of the name right now. But it looks a lot like portulaca but isn't. I keep some of it, portulaca, and other low lying plants growing in the pots I bring in so the soil doesn't show.

Cypress mulch is made from the bark of cypress trees. Doesn't last as long as some mulches, but mats well to keep weeds down & has a pleasant scent. Kind og orangish when new or wet. Here is a good shot of the mulch before plants cover it up.

Batchelor Buttons, Mums & Malva Zebrina still blooming. A few late asters. Three hard frosts have taken their toll :(

you want to avoid some bark mulches as they can badly affect nutrients in the soil.

Dont grass cutting go to mush and smell bad?

For all summer and fall bloomers you cant go wrong with Marguerites which are now called Argyranthemums http://www.marksgardenplants.com/argyranthemums.htm they bloom until the frost knocks them back.

The grass clippings dry & break down fairly quickly here--even if you put them on thick.A good mat of them holds in water & stops weeds from breaking thru.

Wandasflowers Thanks your mulch looks good. We don't have cypress here so I wasn't sure if you were using leaves or bark.

Here we use bark that is usually a mixture of fir,hemlock, and any thing else that gets in the way.

I have found out the finer the bark the better it chokes the weeds. The downside to this is it blows away faster as well.

So I compromise I put newspaper down then cover it with coarse bark which is cheaper than fine bark.

A friend of mine asked a local tree service to dump a free load of wood chips in her yard--they left a 3 load pile. I spent the past 2 weeks moving it to my house. I re-filled 10 garbage bags each day at lunch & emptied them at my house each night. 216 bags total to cover all the way around my beds! Whew! What a job, but it looks great!