What’s in Bloom – October 2012

I stepped out this morning and took photos of some of the plants that are currently blooming in my garden. Just because summer is officially over, it doesn’t mean that the color needs to be gone from your garden. Clockwise from the upper left is blue mistflower, fall blooming aster, strawberry gomphrena, mealy blue sage and hummingbird bush. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Blue mistflower is predominantly a late summer/fall bloomer in my garden. It is a good source of nectar for migrating monarch butterflies. As the name implies, this aster blooms in the fall. You can see that it has just begun to open its flowers and will soon be a pretty mound of purple. Strawberry gomphrena is an annual that reseeds and blooms as soon as it can in the spring and continues until a freeze. Occasionally some of these plants will overwinter as a tender perennial. Late summer and fall rains have brought out another flush of blooms on my native TX mealy blue sage. Hummingbird bush thrives and blooms in the sun, heat and fairly dry conditions.