Plants I'm Growing: First Blooms--Dudleya, Salvia, Gaura, Echium (2011)

A number of plants came into bloom in the garden yesterday and today. Yesterday, Dudleya cymosa, a native succulent that normally clings to steep rock faces (growing here in a stone wall), and a large lavender and white salvia that unfortunately I've forgotten the species name of. The Dudleya bloomed on May 20 in 2010, so it has calculated a botanical year of 367 days. The salvia, whatever it is, bloomed on May 17 in 2010, calculating a year of 360 days.

Today brought first blooms of 2011 on Gaura lindheimeri, and Echium boissieri. Gaura is a delicate pink or white flower native to Texas and Louisiana that seems to do well here in our dry summer climate. Echium Boissieri is native to Spain. It's a comparatively rare Echium here. I bought a couple years ago and haven't seen it in the nurseries since, but, if left to go to seed, it reliably produces new seedlings every year. Like many of the Echiums, it's a biennial, producing a rosette of leaves in the first year, a tall flower stalk in the second year. The garden is just about at its peak now.

The Gaura bloomed on May 30 in 2010, for a year of 358 days. Echium Boissieri bloomed on May 20 in 2009 and on May 18 in 2010, calculating botanical years of 363 days and 370 days.

Plants I'm Growing--First Blooms: Echium Boissieri (2010)

First blooms of 2010 today on Echium boissieri--one of the lesser-known Echiums. This one has comparatively inconspicuous (for an Echium) pink blossoms on tall spikes that emerge from second-year rosettes of leaves. A bumbleebee favorite around here. This plant bloomed in 2009 on May 18. Thus, a year according to Echium boissieri was 363 days. All the plants in the garden now (about 15 of them) are volunteers from seed.

Plants I'm growing: First Blooms--Echium Boissieri (2009)

First blooms today on some of the many Echium boissieri plants in the garden, all of which are volunteers from seeds from a single plant I put in three or four years ago. Like many of the Echiums, this is a biennial, forming a flat rosette of leaves in the first year and then throwing up a giant spike of flowers in the second year, before dying. The original plant came from Annie's Annuals (in Richmond, California) via Cottage Gardens, in Petaluma, California, but neither source has had this species for several years now, as far as I can tell.