Gardening Flowers & Foliage

Hey Canadian border VT
Sounds like we are talking about two different varieties of Firebush. Below is an article I found on the Firebush we have here in Zone 8 and Zone 9:

Hamelia patens is native to tropical and subtropical America where it grows to be a large shrub or small tree. It can grow to large proportions in Deep South Texas where frosts and freezes don’t kill it back to its roots. For the middle third of the state it becomes a root-hardy perennial, and for the northern parts of the state it’s best used as an annual. (Don’t be confused into thinking it will be a landscaping shrub if it freezes where you live.)

Here is photo of three Firebushes in my backyard:

 

It’s commonly called a burning bush, my mom the Sunday school teacher probably changed it I always called it a fire bush. Moreover , I have never seen it in woods and it only grows where I planted it within mile is my home

 

I think you are describing Burning Bush, not Fire Bush. They are two separate things. When I Google Fire Bush, I get results that show the exact thing that Knothead shows.

I have a burning bush in my yard. It was here from the previous owner and was pretty old then - so pre-ban.

 

A few more summer blooms

 

Pretty

 

It's Rose of Sharon season in the region.

Mine is in bloom.

 

Mine haven't set any buds yet. But it has been so dry, and I haven't supplemented with watering, so I'm not surprised. Plus, mine are usually a couple weeks later than yours.

 

The downpours over the past couple of days, beat down various plants in bloom

 

I’ve been wanting to get milkweed going in my yard for a while, to help support the monarch butterflies. A couple years ago I had scattered some common milkweed seeds in this area and forgot all about them. This spring, I actually had a few plants come up. This morning as I was walking by, I saw that a monarch caterpillar has already taken up residence. Nice little surprise.

 

It doesn’t look like much now, but this little seedling is butterfly weed. There are a few that took hold this year. Next year they should really start to pop.

 

At least my black eyed Susans are starting to put out a show. First year for them growing here. I planted hundreds of purple coneflower seeds here too but didn't end up with much. You can see a few small plants on the left, which should take off next year and finally bloom. I'm going to have to thin out the black eyed Susans. I'm debating breaking up this bed a bit with some native sedge and grass, but don't want it to become an unkempt mess. I dig the natural/native look, so what I'm trying to achieve here is semi-controlled chaos. We'll see what happens.

 

I love butterfly weed, which is good because I have them all over from self-seeding when I don't catch the pods before they burst.

Weird that my Black Eyed Susans have been blooming for almost a month and yours are just getting there. Those have also spread everywhere by seed. I even have them growing in the "lawn". The plants get mowed and they just grow low enough that they have really short flowers - LOL. Granted, I haven't had to mow since July 15, but they are still a lot smaller than their brethren in the gardens.

 

Highly scented Stargazer lilies

 

I’ve got a couple things working against me with my native flower garden. The biggest obstacle is that it doesn’t get full sun until noon, then only for about an hour. In late afternoon it’ll get more full sun for another 2-3 hours. The other thing is that I planted high density, expecting a very high failure rate. That held true for the coneflowers, but not the BES’s. I’ve got to thin them out. I’m really hoping next year I can have more of an equilibrium between everything I introduced to the flower bed (and hopefully see a few more species that I brought in but didn’t sprout this year)

 

MikeInMa am I missing @trucka gladioli pics?

 

He's got over 200 bulbs that bloomed.

Not being a wood burner, he's not on the site much.

I'll let him know there's interest!

 

Just a PSA if you have a "weeping" tree or shrub that blocks view to the ground below it. Make sure you look under there every once in a while. I looked under my lacy Japanese Maple and found this. It hasn't been there but maybe a couple of month maximum, and the roots to the main vine were 4-5' long, There are two separate vines started down there.



Yesterday I gave the Variegated willow (circled) a trim. It had large branches that were nearly touching that chain link panel behind the shed. Branches were as tall as the eaves. And one of the main branches had leaned over towards, and past the corner and was literally on top of all the shrubs to the left and reached past the blooming shrub in the bottom, left corner.


All the branches from the willow. That shrub is mostly shaded by the shed and a tree behind where I was standing for the above picture, so the leaves turn nearly white and have lots of variegation. Before the shed was there, it rarely had any variegation at all and the leaves stayed green from all the sun it got.

 

A couple more North American native additions for the flower bed next year. Big bluestem grass, field thistle and native lupines.