I’m growing bluebeard for the first time, convinced to try it by a fellow shopper at Barton Springs Nursery last spring who said how great ‘Dark Knight’ Caryopteris x clandonensis had performed for her in a hot, sunny bed. Of course I don’t have too many sunny spots in my live oak-shaded garden, so mine makes do with some midday sun. It’s hung on rather quietly all summer, biding its time, and last week it suddenly burst into bloom. Like the emergence of the oxblood lily and the purpling of American beautyberry, the lavender caryopteris flowers are a harbinger of fall.

A wider view. I’m sure in more sun this plant would have a fuller, more compact appearance. But even with its lankier form in part shade, I’m happy to have one more plant confirming that fall is on the way.

For more Bloom Day posts from around the world, visit meme hostess Carol at May Dreams Gardens. And remember, it’s Foliage Follow-Up tomorrow!

Note: My Plant This posts are written primarily for gardeners in central Texas. The plants I recommend are ones I’ve grown myself and have direct experience with. I wish I could provide more information about how these plants might perform in other parts of the country, but gardening knowledge is local. Consider checking your local online gardening forums to see if a particular plant might work in your region.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Last week I took a quick trip to central North Carolina to visit my dad, who lives in the charming Fearrington Village planned community. (Pics of the Fearrington House Inn garden coming soon.) Many of his neighbors—and this is a neighborhood of retirees—have opted out of extensive and time-consuming front lawns and instead left their pine tree-shaded lots largely natural and mulched with fallen pine straw, planting some evergreen shrubs and a few flowering perennials by the front door.

That’s an easy-care, lawn-free approach for sure, but Dad and his wife wanted a courtyard garden in which to entertain, with seating and lots of flowers. So they hired a designer and had a wall constructed around half of their front yard, creating enclosure, privacy, and protection from deer, and filled it with a lovely mix of evergreens, flowering trees for shade, flowering shrubs like hydrangeas and roses, and seasonally blooming perennials. This is the view from the front porch; you can glimpse the white stuccoed wall in the background. The steps lead to a small guest house on the left that forms part of the courtyard enclosure. An attached garage forms the right-side wall.

The paver path from the gate simply widens as it approaches the front door, creating inviting patio spaces that open up the garden and keep the extensive plantings from feeling claustrophobic. A wooden bench overlooks a raised-edge pond with goldfish, and just past it you can see a double wrought-iron gate, which they used to leave open during the day. However, Dad recently surprised a deer munching his impatiens up by the front porch in broad daylight, so now they keep the gate closed.

Summer is the best season in the garden, with pink and watermelon-red crepe myrtles in bloom, along with Knock Out roses, guara, coneflowers, and lantana.

The place was swarming with tiger swallowtails.

You couldn’t walk through the garden without them drunkenly flying into you as they fluttered from flower to flower.

A blue dragonfly made a more sedate appearance on a faded lotus flower.

Its coloring and angular lines seemed to echo…

…the dancing man sculpture in the center of the courtyard.

Portulaca flowers in a rusted, white-painted urn—a Victorian touch

Several benches offer places to sit and enjoy the garden.

Hidden in one corner of the courtyard, tucked away behind a tall hedge with an arched doorway cut out of the hedge, is a dining area shaded by a Mustang grape arbor.

Surrounding walls are painted for a burst of color. It was cool enough for us to have dinner here one evening—very pleasant.

Recent rains had filled this empty urn, and confetti-like crepe myrtle blossoms floated on the surface.

Happy Bloom Day, and I hope you enjoyed the tour. I posted about Dad’s garden last summer too, so just click for more pics. For more Bloom Day posts, visit meme hostess Carol at May Dreams Gardens. And remember, it’s Foliage Follow-Up tomorrow!

Update: For a look at the shops, patio gardens, and, yes, Oreo cows of Fearrington Village, click here.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Before vacationing in Rocky Mountain National Park earlier this month, we stopped in Denver to visit the Denver Botanic Gardens, which I’d long wanted to see. Though the day grew hot, reaching 100 degrees F, the gardens did not disappoint, glowing with high-country color against a bright-blue sky and accented with monumental bamboo sculptures like the one flowing down a slope in this image.

Although Denver Botanic Garden is compact, sandwiched as it is amid downtown streets, it’s divided into numerous and varied types of gardens—too many to show in one post. Since today is Bloom Day, I’ll start with images of flowering, xeric perennials from the Birds & Bees Walk and the O’Fallon Perennial Walk—like these monarda, goldenrod, and lavender visited by a swallowtail butterfly.

Lavender and goldenrod

A southwestern look: lavender flowering against an adobe-style wall

Goldenrod

A grape arbor offers respite from the sun, while perennials flower with abandon along the fence rails.

A drier but no less beautiful garden greets you near the entrance, in the long perennial borders flanking a main walkway, hedged with green walls on either side.

We arrived right at opening, 9 am, but you can see that even then the sun was high and intensely bright, making photography a challenge. A number of eager visitors and photographers, like us, were there right as the doors opened.

Eryngium

The bees loved these ghostly, prickly flowers.

Garlic seedheads stood like comical elfin hats.

Hollyhocks

Candy-colored yarrow

I don’t know this plant but admired its burgundy leaves and yellow flowers. Update: Fairegarden Frances thinks it’s Lysimachia ciliata.

Verbascum

As we left the perennial walk we entered a sunny plaza rustling with ornamental grasses.

A long, rill-like waterway, with vertical fountains spouting up at times, was bordered by several varieties of ornamental grasses, and these pale-yellow hollyhocks.

In a line down the middle of the waterway stood blue pots of bamboo muhly grass.

Beautiful texture and color

A closer look

Swirling grasses in gold and blue played against hot-colored perennials.

Bright, bright sun, but something caught my eye over here by this bench.

Pretty persicaria, much taller than any I’ve ever seen in Austin, but that’s not what I noticed.

It’s this simple combination of Mexican feathergrass (Nassella tenuissima) and purple sage (Salvia offinalis purpurea), which I have in my own garden at home. Hey, it looks even prettier with the burgundy leaves of barberry behind it. We could also use loropetalum at home.

And I leave you with a last glimpse of sweet hollyhocks. I’ll have more tomorrow from Denver Botanic Garden—DBG’s Grasses & Cholla for Foliage Follow-Up—and for several posts to come. Please click the links for more posts about my visit to the gardens.

For more Bloom Day posts from around the world, visit May Dreams Gardens.

All material © 2006-2012 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.