Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
jakkom

February Flowers, Pt 2 of 2 (photo heavy)

jakkom
12 years ago

Many more flowers popping up:

An unknown bearded iris - I have its evergreen foliage all over my garden. Love its blue-green leaf color, and it's amazingly vigorous (those bright green spiky leaves in the background are freesias, BTW). This iris often blooms twice a year. This one is smashed up against a silver lavender in bloom:

{{gwi:620221}}

Evergeen iberis isn't a successful groundcover for me. I won't give it enough water (our summers are bone dry) so it stays in small 2' patches and doesn't go any further:

{{gwi:620222}}

One of my half-a-dozen hellebores - the alternating wet/dry weather has produced an astounding crop of aphids and whitefly to go along with the flowers, LOL:

{{gwi:620223}}

My biggest and happiest hellebore:

{{gwi:620224}}

"Pink Lady" hellebore:

{{gwi:620225}}

A white hellebore:

{{gwi:620226}}

This "Red Lady" hellebore is showing a yellowish tint, for some reason:

{{gwi:620227}}

Hardenbergia "Happy Wanderer" - I had to take one of these out as it was too vigorous for my small urban garden. I love it, though, so I'm trying to establish this new one in a more shady place, which seems to be slowing it down to a manageable rate of growth:

{{gwi:620228}}

This is the photo that is truly indicative of how advanced our spring has progressed this year. Freesias are already sending up flower spikes, something they don't normally do for another month at least:

{{gwi:620229}}

I have three coleonema ("Breath of Heaven") shrubs all starting their annual show:

{{gwi:620230}}

The euryops bush is recovering from the frosts that nipped it last month:

{{gwi:620231}}

Another reseeded osteo, this time coming out as a double white:

{{gwi:620232}}

We like the dark purple osteos the best, but they're the least vigorous and don't seem to reseed like the others:

{{gwi:620233}}

I love this little plant, a variegated trailing erysimum. It's bright, has no pests, is drought resistant, and blooms for long periods of time:

{{gwi:620234}}

My clivias don't bloom well although they survive. They really need more regular watering, but I always have so many plants flowering year round I don't worry much about it. This is the more common orange-flowered, and it should be opening up within another week:

{{gwi:620235}}

This is pink cestrum, a shrub which is virtually ever-blooming. I doubt it has spent more than four months out of the past eight years out of bloom! It does suffer from scale in our bone-dry summers, though. It's always so much happier looking in winter with the (when we get them) rains:

{{gwi:620236}}

I have fallen in love with Camellia reticulatas and wish I had more room to add more. This is "Taylor's Perfection", which is a wonderful pale pink single. I check every day, waiting for one of these buds to open!

{{gwi:620237}}

This camellia is "Crimson and Gold". I should have planted it somewhere high; the flowers droop and nobody can see them:

{{gwi:620239}}

I don't know the name of this white camellia - this will be the first time it has bloomed. The spot may be a bit too shady for it; we'll have to see how it goes:

{{gwi:620240}}

I love white callas, although they disappear in summer once the soil heats up. They're beautiful in the vase with those dark purple bearded iris in the first photo of this thread:

{{gwi:620241}}

Last but certainly not least, a tecomaria planted just last week. I'm working on growing plants against our bottom fence to screen out some less-than-attractive views of the schoolyard fence below us, so I need something fast growing with good height and width:

{{gwi:620242}}

Comments (3)