GBBD: A TROPICAL JULY GARDEN ~ Color from blooms and foliage

Bauhinia aculeata

Happy GBBD from Tropical Texana. Carol at http://maydreamsgardens.com/  hosts this garden tour each month. Thanks, Carol. :-)

 HOT is what it's all about in a Tropical Garden. And if you've ever been to Houston in the summer, you'll be walking into an oven. So, let's see what the oven looks like this month. I've cooked up a lot of color for you to enjoy.

Aechmea 'Little Naru' is blooming for the very first time.

This small Ruellia is from Cindy at My Corner of Katy. It's one of my favorites.

 Ruellia brittoniana in a shade of light pink.

Dwarf Katie Ruellia.

Phlox panniculata is now in bloom. It has suffered from this drought though I water it daily.

Close up of Phlox panniculata.

Turk's Cap ~ Pam's Pink, also from Cindy at My Corner of Katy.

Close up of Pam's Pink

Not all of the colors in the garden are from flowers. This neon skimmer owns our backyard. Currently, there are two females also interested in our pond.

Since our back yard is very shady, I rely on these colorful bromeliads to liven up the garden.

I use crushed lava rock and a hint of compost in each pot. Neoregelias (pictured) like a sparse soil.

This Euphorbia milii (Crown of Thorns) wins the prize for blooming every month.

A shelf with more colorful bromeliads.

Various textures and colors by the pond. Notice our pet dragonfly. It hardly flinches as I walk up since it's waiting for females. I could probably hold it on my finger.

The backyard tropical shade garden. This is my favorite part of our yard. The pond attracts 3 kinds of dragonflies and other wildlife. A raccoon visits on some nights. The plants with the large leaves are Canna musaefolia. It will have small, red flowers later.

Finally, here's Hoot, the friendliest of our 6 pet chickens. She greets me every morning ready to play in the garden. Everyone should have a pet chicken. They love digging in the garden almost as much as I do.

Well, that's it for July. May we all get some rain down here in the South.

Thanks for visiting.

See you next time.

David/ :-)

GBBD: Welcome to AUGUST BLOOM DAY! :-)

No rain, endless heat, high humidity, and lots of shade. Can anything still be blooming? Well, yes!
Welcome to our shady tropical garden in Houston, Texas.  Anything blooming at this point gets the thumbs up to stay around in future years.

These beautiful peacock gingers bloom all summer in dense shade (Kaempferia pulchra)

Their foliage makes them twice as nice.

In the front yard, Blue Daze (Evolvulus) has bloomed all summer long. It has the unenviable spot right next to the road. (Think dogs walking by..okay?)

The Cleomes looked better earlier in the summer, but still manage to bloom early in the morning.

My favorite drought tolerant plant so far is the small mounding Black Foot Daisy (Melampodium leucanthum). This is first time I've tried this plant. I put it in between Agaves for contrasting foliage.

The bright colored Four O'clocks are blooming now. Almost everything else is conserving energy to survive the dry spell.

I thought Ruellias only came in shades of purple. This is my first red Ruellia and it is taking the heat and still blooming. It's a native of South America and should be hardy here in zone 9B. You grow them from stem cuttings since they are in the Acanthus family. I'm growing to love the Acanthus family.

Do you see the camouflaged insect on this coreopsis? I wish I knew the name.

These zinnias totally surprise me. No powdery mildew this year.

Zinnias are native to Mexico and seem to love heat.

I showed the White Orchid tree last month and some are still blooming.

By the way, are you keeping track of all the colors so far? What am I missing?

 Finally, not all the colors in our August garden are from flowers. Here's a glimpse of our bromeliad collection. The brown spots are a reminder of the hard freeze we had in January.

Well, that's it from the hardest gardening month at Tropical Texana.

Those northern gardens are probably jam packed with gorgeous flowers!

Please visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens and see her wonderful flowers. She thought up the idea and has a list of over a hundred gardens that participate.

She'd love to have you drop by.

http://www.maydreamsgardens.blogspot.com/