Flowers Are Finally Blooming

Heat and rain have brought flowers to the Automatic Garden. The blooming had been a bit delayed this year as the plants froze and had to come back from their roots. They have not disappointed. Above is a Mexican Hat, Ratibida columifera. I have been surprised that it has not reseeded over the years. The original has only made one other plant.

Shrimp plants, Justicia brandegeena, were the flowers that blew my mind when I moved to Texas. I was at someone’s house for a party and the host had a big vase full of them. It was many years before I could grow my own, but I never forgot them. This one is from my mother-in-law.

I have added other varieties to my garden. Muted Yellow is the name of this variety, but somehow in my mind, it is green. I guess you see what you want to see.

Fruit Cocktail makes a fun flower and is doing well this year. I also have one more Shrimp Plant that is dark pink, but not yet in bloom.

This Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, has found its happy place when it somehow planted itself into a bed far from the others.

The Salvia guaranitca has put out flower stalks making the hummingbirds very happy.

I have had this Black-Eyed Susan for so long that I don’t know the variety or where I got it. It is a self-seeding annual that rambles here and there around the garden.

The Mexican Sunflower or Tithonia is blooming early from last year’s seed.

I always have a little panic every year that maybe my flowers will not return, but as in years before the plants came back and gifted me with their flowers.